Description
A G major minuet, BWV Anh. 116, whose melody moves busily within a balanced phrase structure. It carries no composer's name and has not been confirmed as Bach's. It belongs to the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, which besides Bach's own works holds many small pieces by family members and contemporaries, so that many pieces with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers are of uncertain authorship.
It is in G major and 3/4, in binary form with each half repeated. It has more notes than the famous G major minuet from the same notebook (BWV Anh. 114), and its melody is more active. The range runs from D2 to A5, with 310 notes in about 59 seconds.
It is a step up among the notebook's small pieces, and the site rates it intermediate. The challenges are keeping the beat steady where the melody moves quickly and holding the left-hand line against the right. Slow the playback speed, check both hands through the hand colours, and repeat the busier phrases with the A-B loop until you can keep the triple-time flow intact.
The minuet, an elegant triple-time dance popular in the Baroque era, evoking the refined atmosphere of a courtly ball.
Browse all songs in Minuets →Sheet Music
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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