Description
A Polish-style dance in 3/4, heard here in the calm, refined form that predates the brilliant style familiar from Chopin, this Polonaise sits between the gavotte and the bourrée of French Suite No. 6 in E major, BWV 817. The polonaise was fashionable in Germany in the early 18th century and is not one of the traditional suite dances such as the allemande or courante, so it brings a touch of the latest fashion into the suite.
It is in E major, a measured triple-time dance in binary form, each half repeated. The range runs from C#2 to B5, and at about 88 seconds with 590 notes it is one of the longer dances in the suite.
It is an intermediate piece that asks less for speed than for control of where the weight falls within the triple metre. Its character differs from the Menuet and Sarabande although all three are in 3/4, so comparing it with the other triple-time movements of the suite helps you hear the difference. Slow the playback speed to check the shape of the rhythm, and repeat a single phrase with the A-B loop while you refine how the melody sings.
Six keyboard suites by Bach that elegantly incorporate Baroque dance forms.
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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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