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Minuet
in G
Composer:
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Arr:
Merv Rowley
One must read the entire biography of Johann S. Bach to appreciate fully
his contributions to the world of music. As to his
character and his life accomplishments, one reviewer has
said, “He lived but to worship God and to write
music. This hard-working man, so little appreciated by
himself, his children, his contemporaries, and even his
immediate successors, was one of the geniuses of music.
And if you should be one of those who consider him the
greatest composer of them all, you would find yourself
in good company, indeed!” In later years, Richard
Wagner referred to Bach as “The most stupendous
miracle in all music”.
Prior to Bach, classical music had been “polyphonic”, written as
separate melody lines of four to eight parts, and
sung without instrumental accompaniment (a capella) as a
part of church services. By the 16th century,
secular polyphonic music also appeared in the form of
madrigals. The 17th century (Baroque Period)
saw the change to “homophonic” music, stressing a
single melody line with harmonic accompaniment, arranged
for musical instruments. Bach played a key role as a
composer of this type of new music (Nouve musiche),
for virtually all types of arrangements other
than operas.
Western music during this era still used only partially-tempered scales,
such as Mean tone, and note pairs such as F#/Gb and C#/Db
had differing frequencies. Instruments such as
harpsichords, with fixed” tunings, required extra keys
for such notes. This made it very difficult to modulate
from one key to another. This problem was solved by the
introduction of the concept of “equal-temperament”,
wherein tones on a keyboard were tuned so as to produce
equal frequency ratios between all twelve successive
notes in each octave. Bach helped promote this new
concept by arranging a booklet of musical arrangements
he entitled Das Wohltempierte Klavier (The
Well-Tempered Keyboard). It contained arrangements in
all 12 major and minor keys.
♫♫♫
This
month’s selection is an uncomplicated melody, with
chord accompaniment inserted at intervals to illustrate
the basic idea of what music majors call
“homophonic” arrangements. For clarification, the
individual notes of each chord are included for those
who play from the music notation. Notice that the music
is written in two parts. Consider measures 1 to 8 (page
1 of the PDF) to be part A,
and measures 9-16 (page 2 of the PDF) to be Part B. The “repeat” signs, as
shown, indicate that each part is to be repeated in the
order A-A-B-B. The MIDI and TEF files will give you both
the tempo and sounds of the music… perhaps as a
harpsichord.
Playing Hints:
Minuets were slow, stately dances by couples. They
consisted often of a series of short steps, followed by
posturing, bowing and curtsying of the dancers in
prescribed manners. You should emphasize the chord beats
with the thought that these are the hesitations for the
posturing, while the following slow runs of melody notes
represent the walking of the dancers to a new location
and position. If you have a second player with whom to
practice this music, you may want to start as a duet,
with one playing the chords and the other playing the
run of melody notes. To learn both, take turns playing
each part. When you know both, go solo!
This piece is a bit challenging regarding finger
positioning, but the tempo is slow enough that you
should be able to master it with a little practice.
We hope you enjoy this well-known classic by Herr Bach.
♫♫♫
Historical links:
http://tile.net/tile/bach/
♫♫♫
Music files for download:
Bach minuet in G.pdf
-
PDF music file
Bach Minuet in G.mid
- MIDI file
Bach Minuet in G.tef -
TablEdit file
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