Description
Unusually for a sarabande, this one opens with an upbeat of three quavers, and the left hand imitates the figure straight away: a contrapuntal sarabande, the fourth movement of Partita No. 3. The sarabande is a slow dance in triple time with its weight on the second beat, usually written as a melody sung over supporting chords; here, instead, two voices chase each other as equals.
In A minor and triple metre, a short figure combining a quaver with a semiquaver triplet is handed from the right hand to the left and back again. The left hand often holds the beat by repeating a note in quavers and leaping down an octave and back, so that a slow dance carries a steady current of small movement underneath. Each half is repeated.
An advanced movement, only about a minute and a half long, that asks for the semiquaver triplets to be played as triplets, not as ordinary semiquavers, and in the same shape in either hand. Follow which hand has the figure with the hand colours, and the imitation becomes visible as it passes across. Lower the playback speed and repeat the beats where triplets enter with the A-B loop until the two hands' figures match.
Suite-form works from the Baroque era; Bach's Partitas, a sequence of varied dances, are ranked among the greatest keyboard works.
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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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