Description
A friendly main theme keeps coming back between episodes of contrasting character in this Gavotte en Rondeau, the third movement of BWV 1006a. In its original form, in Bach's Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, BWV 1006, it is one of the best-known movements of his solo violin music. For his own arrangement no instrument is specified, and the lute or the lute-harpsichord are the usual suggestions.
In E major. The gavotte is a duple-time dance of French origin, characterised by starting in the middle of the bar, and here it is laid out as a rondeau, as the title says. It has 867 notes, and its range runs from B1 to D5, the lowest note one below the left end of a 61-key keyboard, though an octave shift fits it on one.
Rated intermediate. The task is to keep the same expression each time the theme returns, while bringing out the different key and character of each episode. Isolate the theme with the A-B loop and repeat it, and lower the playback speed to check the entry from mid-bar. The hand colours let you follow the roles of the melody and the added bass as you practise.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
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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