Here is another early Bach organ work, probably dating to his years in Arnstadt (1703-1707), where he served as organist at the Neue Kirche. This Prelude and Fugue in A minor already exhibits the masterful structural sense and stylistic subtleties found in many of his later and more masterful Prelude and Fugue efforts, including the great Toccata and Fugue (BWV 565) that lay just a few years ahead. This early effort is not as large-scale as many of those later works, having a more modest scope and length and lasting only about five or six minutes. However musicologists rank this early work, they will always find it interesting and full of ideas. It opens with an introductory episode that mixes the epic with the ominous, the latter mood coming largely in the brilliant, powerful pedal sonorities. The Prelude's main theme is lean in its upper-register writing, lively in its contrapuntal activity and overall busy manner. The Fugue uses the same theme, but is more colorful, busier, and, in the end, probably the more interesting half here. A cadenza-like section of great brilliance leads to the powerful, triumphant close.

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