Description
The flowing 3/8 pulse of No. 11 returns in the thirteenth three-part Sinfonia, in A minor, late in the set. Coming after the brilliant A major of No. 12, it moves into shadow on the same keynote.
The subject passes from voice to voice, flowing without a break within the small metre as it forms the harmony of the minor key. It has 630 notes in 106 seconds, with a range from E2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard. With no key signature the page is easy to read, but the accidentals that come with minor-key harmony appear throughout.
What makes it advanced is keeping the flow of the melody unbroken within a small metre without letting the three overlapping voices blur. Simply moving the fingers tends to make it flat; what matters is changing the expression of each voice each time the subject appears. Lower the playback speed to check the accidentals in the score view, and sort out the voices with the hand colours. Repeat long phrases with an A-B loop to build a singing line with a long breath.
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
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 →