Description
Clavier-Übung III, published in 1739, is mainly a collection of chorale preludes for organ, and among them are four Duetti for keyboard, BWV 802-805. A duetto here means a piece written in just two voices, and this first one opens the group.
It is in E minor and 3/8, about three minutes forty seconds long with 989 notes. A chromatic subject passes back and forth between the two voices, a contrapuntal piece that moves on through imitation and inversion. There are only two parts, but they are written so that they still work when their roles are exchanged, and a long piece is built from a short subject. The quick three beats of 3/8 give the whole an unbroken drive.
It is rated intermediate, but with only two voices the independence of the hands is tested directly. Each hand carries its own melody, and the chromatic subject must sound with the same expression in either hand. Everything lies between C2 and C6, within reach of a 61-key keyboard. Slow the playback and follow the hand colours to see which hand has the subject, practise each hand alone with the A-B loop, and then put them together, so the two lines are easier to hear apart.
Two-voice contrapuntal pieces from Part 3 of Bach's Clavier-Übung, blending strict compositional rigor with a lively dialogue between the voices.
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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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