Description
A short G minor dance in which a melancholy melody moves in the polonaise's triple-time tread. It is one of several polonaises written into the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, a book used for playing and learning at home. Its BWV number carries the Anh. prefix of the appendix, so the composer is not settled.
It is in G minor and 3/4. With 148 notes in 51 seconds it is one of the sparest polonaises in the notebook, and its range spans three octaves, G2 to G5, comfortably within a 61-key keyboard.
Rated beginner, it is an easy first encounter with the polonaise's triple time. The tasks are to join the minor-key melody as if singing and keep the triple time steady. Check the right-hand melody and left-hand accompaniment with the hand colours, listen to each hand alone at a reduced playback speed, then put them together while repeating one phrase with the A-B loop. Compared with the D minor polonaise in the same notebook, the different shades of the minor mode become clear.
The polonaise, a stately Polish triple-time dance, including Chopin's grand works marked by a proud, march-like rhythm.
Browse all songs in Polonaises →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.
View all works by Bach →