Bach - Partitia No.4 in D, BWV 828: Sarabande and Gigue

- 2 movements from a Partita - series of dances usually in the same key

- Composed in 1728 (late Baroque)

- Intended for domestic performance on harpsichord

- At this time composers allowed their musical invention to operate freely

- Sarabande = slow, triple time dance

• 2nd beat of the bar emphasised via length or accent
• This happens in bars 1-2, 14 and 29-30

- Elsewhere there is less dance-like semiquaver and demisemiquaver movement

- Gigue traditionally in compound time

- Continuous semiquaver movement

• Longer dotted quaver chords

- In the Sarabande, melody is evolved from a basic motif

- This process (Fortspinnung) involves:

• Repetition
• Sequence
• Variation of intervals
• Rhythmic variation

- Gigue opens with broken-chord pattern

- Then gives way to more conjunct movement

- Occasional chromaticism in both dances

- Functional

- Cadences

- Dominant 7ths (some inverted)

- Secondary 7ths

- Diminished 7th

- Neopolitan 6th

- Suspensions

- Both in D major

- Clearly defined by:

• Cadences
• Modulations to related keys
  • A major at bar 12
  • E minor at bar 24 (Sarabande)

- Binary with repeats

- 1st sections finish in the dominant and returns to the tonic in the second

- Unusually the 2nd section of the Gigue is the same length as the 1st.

• In most binary movements the 2nd section is longer

- Written for harpsichord

• Therefore intended for an instrument with smaller dynamic range and less sustaining power than the modern piano

- Sarabande has variety of textures:

• Homophony (bar 1)
• Monophony (bar 2)
• 2 part with steady moving quaver bass supporting more rhythmic upper part
• Free voiced textures - Passage with varying numbers of parts (bars 11-12)

- Gigue opens fugally - each part entering imitatively

- 2nd section opens with new melody which becomes a countersubject to the original subject when it returns in bar 55