Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musici...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him
the greatest composer of all time.
Of Bach's three partitas for solo violin, the first is
the most old-fashioned in its choice of dance
movements. The work is structurally unusual among
Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo instruments in
that it consists of four pairs of movements, the second
of each pair offering a variation (or, employing the
French term double) on the first. Another nod to older
forms is the overall layout of the movements; the pairs
fall into the slow-fast-slow-fast pattern of the church
sonata or sonata da chiesa. To complicate matters, each
double is much faster than the movement it varies. The
work is technically challenging, generally more
difficult than the third partita but not as tough as
the second, the famous Chaconne of which is clotted
with double and triple stops.
The opening Allemanda announces that it's not for sissy
violinists with an immediate series of double stops
(which were easier to play in Bach's time than today,
thanks to the convex Baroque bow). This is a typical
example of the allemanda (or allemande), a slow,
serious German dance in quadruple meter and binary
form, its improvisational-seeming melodies refusing to
conform to the expected phrases. Its "Double" is faster
and in 2/2, following the same contours as the original
melodies, but now filling them in with even runs of
notes. The "Correnta" is the Italian version of the
dance form known in French as courante: fairly fast, in
3/4, sawing up and down the scale. Its 'Double," marked
Presto, again rolls all over the staff, but the notes
now fly by almost as fast as possible. The mood becomes
somber with the Sarabande, the only movement in this
partita to receive the French version of its title.
Indeed, unlike the common Italian model, this French
Sarabande is slow (in 3/4 meter) and expressive, its
second half almost entirely in double stops. Its
"Double" switches to 9/8 and increases the tempo, but
the mood remains questioning and unsettled; at least
Bach now eases off the multiple stops. Finally comes a
movement in Tempo di Borea (related to the bourée),
fast and sharply accented in a meter marked 2/4 but
really feeling more like 2/2; again, Bach employs
multiple stops through most of this movement. Its
"Double" is in 12/4, the shape of the original melody
obscured by the fast, nonstop passagework.
PARTITION