Description
Menuet I moves at the moderate pace of the courtly minuet in E major and 3/4, with a bass line and harmony added beneath a melody first written for a single violin. It comes from BWV 1006a, Bach's own arrangement of his Partita No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1006. No instrument is specified; the lute or the lute-harpsichord (Lautenwerck) are the leading suggestions, though it is also played on keyboard instruments. In that suite it follows the Prelude, the Loure and the Gavotte en Rondeau.
The texture is built mainly on two voices, and the piece is paired with Menuet II, which follows. The range runs from B1 to C#5, sitting fairly low and making little use of the upper register.
With only 245 notes, its technical demands are modest. The task is to remember that this was a violin melody and to keep it singing as one unbroken line. Use the hand colours to tell the melody from the added bass, and slow the playback speed to hear each line; you will hear how the arranger's additions support the melody.
The minuet, an elegant triple-time dance popular in the Baroque era, evoking the refined atmosphere of a courtly ball.
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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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