Odd pieces

Voce - the famous D minor prelude and fugue Bach authorship has been contested. Aside from parallel fifths the style is a spare, gallant style. When Bach incorporates the gallant style into his own the counterpoint is much denser and the harmonic movement either a bit quicker or more complex than with the D minor. Lastly Bach's early style is closer to the North German style that stemmed from Scheidt et al with the influence of Buxtehude and Vivalvdi a little later. If you want a good idea of early Bach just look at his Toccattas. He breaks some counterpoint rules and his structure is a bit overgrown (he tends to go on and on with sequences at times!!) but you see some of his mature style coming out.

My opinion is the D minor is not JS Bach.

The 8 Little Preludes and Fugues has been shown by musicologists to be NOT by Bach but by a contemporary of his. Yet, they are little gems and worthwhile study.

Matt -

Well, about the Sreenade For Strings, not sure if you can classify aschamber music. By late 19th century standards, possibly. Otherwise I agree it probably isn't.

Mozart wrote lots of stylistically unusual music throughout his career, Bach less so. There are a great number of spurious or contested (mainly keyboard) works by Bach, but most of his vocal and chamber compositions are watermarked with his style within the first few bars. The secular cantatas are some of the most unusual pieces he wrote; the two in Italian are, at least superficially, about as close as close to Opera as Bach got.