Description
Precise counterpoint built within a calm expression marks the fourteenth three-part Sinfonia, in B-flat major, which sits just before the closing No. 15 in B minor. After the A minor of No. 13 it turns to the soft sound of a major key.
The three voices hand the subject around in 4/4. With 613 notes in 75 seconds its density is fairly high for its length. A 61-key keyboard covers its range of C2 to B-flat 5. The key has two flats, so some ease with the black keys is needed.
The mood is calm but the notes are fine; this intermediate piece asks for accurate hand-offs between voices while keeping a soft sound. Lower the playback speed to see in the score view where the subject moves, and settle who takes the middle voice with the hand colours. Practise the places where the voices overlap in sections with an A-B loop, and aim to keep the three voices even without playing too hard; that is what brings out the settled sound of the piece.
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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