This praeludium in F sharp minor is one of Buxtehude's most-played organ works. During Buxtehude's career in Lübeck, organs were just beginning to be tuned in temperaments that would make it possible to play in keys like F sharp minor. These tuning systems however left some of the more remote keys on the circle of fifths sounding somewhat sour. In this piece, the C sharp major triad which would occur over and over again as the dominant in F sharp minor would sound quite spicy due to the E sharp which would be tuned as an F rather than an E sharp. Buxtehude takes advantage of these tuning anomalies to create a very expressive and edgy work. The praeludium opens with 29 measures of free toccata-like material, followed by two fugues back to back without any intervening free material. The second fugue gives way to rhapsodic passage work borrowing motivic material from the fugue subject that Buxtehude plays with at least twice the duration of the fugue. While Buxtehude usually alternates toccata-like material with fugal material, in this case he sandwiches two fugues in between free toccata sections.

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