With the "Art of the Fugue" Bach wanted to present his musical legacy. Even today, the work still establishes his fame as the greatest contrapuntal composer in music history. He had begun the preparatory work for the printing and the first corrections himself. After Bach's death, however, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel was responsible for the final printing. The work was published in the spring of 1751; a second edition followed already in 1752.