Description
A bass that sinks by semitones and pairs of notes falling like sighs - figures Baroque music used for lament - are concentrated in the ninth of the three-part Sinfonias, known as one of the most deeply expressive pieces in the set.
In F minor and 4/4, materials of different character - a chromatically descending line, the sighing figure, a short motif - are combined and stacked again and again as they change places between the voices. Chromatic progressions abound, and the harmony is notably complex for this set. It has 650 notes in 123 seconds, with a range from C2 to C6 that fits on a 61-key keyboard.
Its advanced rating comes less from the number of notes than from reading the chromatic lines and hearing three materials at once. Lower the playback speed a long way and check in the score view which voice holds each material. Sorting out the hands with the hand colours makes the descending bass line easier to see. Listen closely to the harmonic turns with an A-B loop, and move forward without hurrying, feeling the weight of each note; that is where the expression of this piece lies.
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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