Description
A flowing, ornamented melody unfolds over a stream of quick notes in this G major Allemande in 4/4, the first dance of Partita No. 5, BWV 829, after the opening Praeambulum. No. 5 was published on its own in 1730, and the next year all six partitas appeared together as Part I of the Clavier-Übung. Only Nos. 1, 4 and 5 are in major keys, and No. 5 has a bright, light character.
The allemande is a dance of moderate pace; this one is in binary form, each half repeated. The range is wide, from G1 to D6, and at about three minutes seven seconds with 910 notes it is one of the longer movements of the suite.
It is an advanced piece calling for the stamina to carry long phrases without running out of breath and the technique to make the right-hand ornaments ring brightly. Given its length, an overall sense of where the music rises and where it settles is essential. Check the sections in the score view, slow the playback speed to hear where the ornaments fall, and finish it section by section with the A-B loop; the whole will hold together more easily.
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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