Description
After the heavy minor key of No. 9, the tenth of the three-part Sinfonias turns the mood back to a bright G major, its three voices moving about briskly. It pairs with No. 11 in G minor on the same tonic.
The subject is handed from voice to voice within the 3/4 bars. With 623 notes in 87 seconds a fair number of notes are packed into a short time, and the fine motion runs on without a break. Spanning D2 to C6, it needs no more than 61 keys. With a single sharp, the reading load is light. Following the hand-offs of the subject shows a typical case of three voices moving as equals.
The key is easy to read, but the motion is fine, and the work at this intermediate level is to keep the fingers even while holding the feel of three beats. Lower the playback speed, follow in the score view which voice has the subject, and check how the hands share the work with the hand colours. Practise the places where quick motion overlaps in sections with an A-B loop and raise the speed gradually, and you will be able to play it through while keeping its bright character.
A set of three-part counterpoint studies (BWV 787-801) that expand on the two-part Inventions, teaching more complex polyphony.
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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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