Description
In E major with four sharps, the sixth of the three-part Sinfonias has its three voices singing to each other in the gentle sway of 9/8. It follows the E-flat major No. 5 in the order of the set; by covering fifteen major and minor keys in the set Bach gives the student experience of playing in many different keys.
Its 9/8 is a compound metre of three beats to the bar, each divided into three. With 503 notes in 86 seconds its density is moderate. The range runs from B1 to B5; the lowest note, B1, lies below the C2 bottom of a 61-key digital piano, but an octave shift fits every note on one.
At intermediate level, feeling the three beats and letting the small notes flow within them is what gives the piece its character. In a key with this many sharps, first lower the playback speed and check the accidentals in the score view, and settle who takes the middle voice with the help of the hand colours. An A-B loop over the passages where the voices answer one another helps you keep the sway of the beat while playing in three parts.
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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