Description
A sixteenth-note subject climbing a scale travels through three voices in this, the first of the fifteen three-part Sinfonias. The Inventions and Sinfonias were fair-copied in 1723 as fifteen two-part and fifteen three-part pieces. In his preface Bach names his aims: to play two and three voices cleanly, to play in a singing style, and to gain a first taste of composition. The sinfonias are the stage at which a third voice is added to what the two-part inventions taught.
Set in C major and 4/4, the subject is passed from voice to voice. It appears not only rising but turned upside down as a falling line, and the same material is combined in many positions. It holds 557 notes in 75 seconds, with a range from C#2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard.
For an intermediate piece, what makes it much harder than two-part writing is that two hands must play three voices. The middle voice is taken sometimes by the right hand and sometimes by the left, so it pays to settle which finger takes each note. The hand colours show at a glance which hand has the middle voice at any moment. Use an A-B loop to compare the places where the subject enters, and lower the playback speed to train your ear to follow three lines at once.
A set of three-part counterpoint studies (BWV 787-801) that expand on the two-part Inventions, teaching more complex polyphony.
Browse all songs in Three-Part Sinfonias →Sheet Music
Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
What this piece teaches
The goal of this path: Sinfonia No. 1 in C major, the first of the three-part Inventions. A subject of sixteenth notes running up a scale passes from voice to voice, and also appears inverted as a falling line. Now two hands play three voices.
How to practise it
- The middle voice is taken sometimes by the right hand and sometimes by the left. Check in the colours which hand has it at each point, and settle the fingering first.
- At 0.5x, try to follow all three lines by ear. Humming just one voice as you listen is good practice too.
- Loop each entry of the subject with A-B and compare which voice it appears in.
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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