Description
A G minor minuet, BWV Anh. 115, usually played straight after its major-key sister. In the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach it stands beside that famous companion, the G major minuet BWV Anh. 114. Both were long believed to be Bach's own, but research in the later twentieth century attributed them instead to Christian Petzold, an organist in Dresden. The habit of playing the pair together has outlived the change of attribution.
Where the major companion steps brightly, this one keeps returning to chromatic descents, and its face is shadowed. The melodic line stays modest, leaving the harmonic motion to do the singing. It is a binary form in triple time, each half repeated.
At about 200 notes it is well within reach of a beginner. Played straight after its major twin, it demonstrates by ear how much the same writing and the same rhythm change when only the key changes. Adding no ornaments, holding the weight of the triple meter, and letting the line sing plainly is what suits it.
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
What this piece teaches
From the same Notebook, a minuet in G minor. The form is the one you just learned; what is new is the sound of a minor key, and its accidentals.
How to practise it
- Listen to it straight after the G major minuet and notice what the minor key does to the mood.
- Accidentals land on black keys in the falling notes. Find where the black keys come before you start, and they will not catch you out.
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.
View all works by Bach →