The career of Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian, followed in a general way the same route as that of Handel: Germany to Italy to England. Arriving in England in 1762, three years after Handel's death, J. C. Bach established himself as a popular composer of operas and instrumental works in an early Classical style. It was early in his London years that he was visited by the eight year old Mozart, who was greatly influenced by his music. Mozart's earliest piano concertos were arrangements of Bach's keyboard sonatas, and he esteemed "the London Bach" throughout his life.

Bach's concertos that make up his Opus 7 were published in 1770 under the title Six Concertos for the Harpsichord or Piano Forte with Accompaniments for Two Violins & a Violoncello. In that transitional time between the harpsichord and the piano, it was not uncommon to advertise works as being for either instrument. On the one hand, it could increase sales to people who did not yet have the new pianos, but it also reflected the fact that the piano had not yet developed an idiomatic style distinct from that of the harpsichord.

The fugue was composed by Russian composer Alexander Arensky as part of the collection "Six Children's Pieces for Piano for Four Hands" in 1894. This composition is a prime example of his interest in Russian folk music and symmetrical fugal technique. Arensky used folk melodies to create a rich and expressive fugue, combining traditional Russian motifs with modern musical devices. The work is characterized by rich harmony and masterful development of the theme, reflecting his deep respect for Russian culture and his mastery of the fugue's compositional technique.

"«In the summer of 1935, at the same time as «Romeo and Juliet», I was composing light pieces for children, in which my old love of sonatinity was awakened, reaching here, as it seemed to me, full childishness. By the fall I had a dozen of them, which then came out in a collection called «Children's Music», Op. 65. The last of the pieces, «The Month Walks over the Meadows», was written on its own, not a folk theme. I lived then in Polenov, in a separate hut with a balcony on the Oka River, and in the evenings I used to admire how the month walked through meadows and meadows. The need for children's music was clearly felt…», - writes the composer in his «Autobiography»."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)

"The piece, with its broad Russian songfulness and soft coloring, reminds us once again of Prokofiev's great lyrical gift and the soil of his melodism. The music of this charming piece is saturated with genuine humanity, purity and nobility of feeling. Subsequently, the author used it as the theme of love between Katerina and Danila in the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower, making it one of the most important leitmemes of the entire ballet."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)

"Unlike a number of his other marches, Prokofiev in this case did not go down the path of grotesque or stylization. There is no element of puppetry here (as, for example, in Tchaikovsky's "March of the Wooden Soldiers"), the piece quite realistically depicts children marching. The children's “March”, Op. 65 was widely disseminated and became a favorite piece of the Russian piano repertoire for children."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev's Piano Works and Pianism”)

"The play is close in style to Tarantella. It is written in the character of a quick sketch. One can imagine the children enthusiastically catching up with each other, the atmosphere of a merry, moving children's game".
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev's Piano Works and Pianism”)

"A piece in which the composer tries - and very successfully - to vividly describe the enormous impression that any bright phenomenon of nature makes on children. There are naturally sounding bold sonic «blots» (a chord-stain of two side-by-side seconds), and, precisely falling drops, slow rehearsals on one note, and simply a «Theme of Amazement» before the occurrence (a gentle and beautiful melody descending from the heights)."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev's Piano Works and Pianism”)

"This is a fast and cheerful piece about joyfully chirping grasshoppers, always arousing the interest of the children with their astonishing leaps. The fantasy of the image here does not go beyond the usual children's fictions and in this respect differs markedly from, say, the mysterious fantasy of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. In essence, it is an amusing children's gallop, in the middle section of which one even hears intonations of pioneer songs."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev's Piano Works and Pianism”)

"The fragile, tender, improvisationally direct A major ‘Waltz’ speaks of the links between children's images and the world of fragile, pure and charming female images of Prokofiev's theater music. These two lines of his work, or rather two lines of his artistic ideals, cross and cross-fertilize. There is a childlike directness in his maiden images. In his children's images there is feminine softness, charming love of the world and life. They both strike with spring freshness and are embodied by the composer with extraordinary excitement and inspiration. It is in these two spheres that the dominance of the lyrical beginning in his work is most clearly expressed. A line can be drawn from the naively charming children's Waltz Op. 65 to the fragile Natasha's Waltz from the opera War and Peace - the pinnacle of lyrical waltzing in Prokofiev's music. This line runs through the Es-dur episode of the “Great Waltz” from Cinderella, even intonationally reminiscent of a child's waltz. It also runs through Pushkin's Waltzes, Op. 120 and Waltz on Ice from The Winter Bonfire, and through The Tale of the Stone Flower, where the theme of the Waltz, Op. 65 is exactly embodied in the scene (No. 19) depicting the possessions of the Mistress of Copper Mountain. Finally - but indirectly - it continues in the waltz-like third movement of the Sixth Piano Sonata and in the waltz from the Seventh Symphony. Prokofiev here develops a deep lyrical and psychological line of Russian waltzing, which differs, for example, from Strauss's waltz, which is more brilliant but also narrower and more external in its somewhat one-sided joyfulness.

Despite the childlike features, Prokofiev's creative handwriting can be felt very clearly in this waltz. The traditional structure of the graceful, tender waltz has been updated, the intonational and harmonic deviations are far from stencil (for example, the very unusual ending of the period in the subdominant tonality), and the texture is unusually transparent. This waltz quickly became widespread in pedagogical practice and successfully withstands competition with ‘generally recognized’ works for children."

(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)

“A true and subtle psychological miniature, previously titled by the composer ”Ashamed has become". How directly and touchingly the sad melody sounds, how sincerely and “in the first person” are conveyed the feelings and reflections that encompass a child at the moments of such psychologically complex experiences! Prokofiev uses here the type of “singing-speaking” (according to L. Mazel's definition, ‘synthetic’) melodies, in which the element of recitative expressiveness is not inferior to cantilever expressiveness."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)

"A genre-dancing, virtuoso piece expressing the joyful temperament of a child captured by the musical and dance element. The lively and vivacious rhythm, elastic accents, the colorfulness of semitone tonal juxtapositions, shifts of single-high tonalities - all this is exciting, easy and joyful. And at the same time childishly simple, without the specific Italian sharpness, undoubtedly incomprehensible to Russian children."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)

"A world of uncomplicated children's fiction. There is nothing striking to the imagination, scary, monstrous. This is a soft, kind fairy tale-narrative, in which the story and the dream are closely intertwined. We can believe that here are embodied images not a fairy tale, told to children, and their own ideas about the fantastic, always living in the minds of children's children quite close to what they have seen and experienced. In fact, true fantasy appears only in the middle section at the sostenuto remark, while in the first and final sections a dreamy narrative with a simple melody against a background of invariably repeated rhythmic turns prevails. These rhythmic repetitions seem to ‘cement’ the form of the Tale, restraining its narrative tendencies."
(V. Delson, “Prokofiev’s Piano Works and Pianism”)