Description
With its upbeat start and quick duple-time drive, this E major Bourrée is the last dance before the closing Gigue of BWV 1006a. That suite, Prelude, Loure, Gavotte en Rondeau, Menuets, Bourrée and Gigue, is Bach's own arrangement of his Partita No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1006, made for an instrument the autograph does not name; lute or lute-harpsichord is generally assumed.
The bourrée is a quick dance of French origin. A bass line is added to the violin's single melody, so on the keyboard it sounds in two parts. It has 355 notes in 149 seconds, and its range runs from B1 to C#5, the lowest note one below the left end of a 61-key keyboard, though an octave shift fits it on one.
Rated intermediate. There are not many notes; the task is keeping the bourrée's spring and its duple-time drive. Lower the playback speed to check how the upbeat enters, repeat phrases with the A-B loop, and watch the relation between melody and bass with the hand colours. Hearing the original violin version alongside makes the role of the added bass clear.
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About the Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was the towering figure of German Baroque music, serving for decades as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Renowned for his mastery of counterpoint, he laid the foundations of keyboard music with works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions. This site includes minuets and polonaises from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the Inventions and Sinfonias, and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Notebook pieces are catalogued with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers, but many are by other composers - Petzold's minuets among them - or by no one known, and most of their song pages give the current view of who wrote them.
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