Description
The gigue that closes English Suite No. 2 in A minor. The gigue comes from a fast dance of England and Ireland and became the standard final movement of the Baroque suite. Bach often wrote his suite gigues in fugue-like imitation, and this is one example.
It is in A minor and 6/8, about 49 seconds long with 785 notes, a very high density of notes for its length. Over the springing rhythm of 6/8, it proceeds in imitative writing, one voice taking up the subject another has just stated. It falls into two halves, and the second half uses the subject turned upside down, bringing the suite to a vigorous close.
It is rated intermediate, but its speed and density make it one of the movements in the suite that most demands agile fingers. The task is to feel 6/8 as two broad beats and keep the rhythm springing through the unbroken quick notes. Its range, C2 to C6, stays within a 61-key keyboard. Slow the playback well down and follow the subject between the hands with the hand colours, then raise the speed one short stretch at a time with the A-B loop to finish it with its drive intact.
Six suites by Bach known as the "English Suites," combining French elegance with technical brilliance.
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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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