Music AS - Sarabande and Gigue from Partitia in D (Bach)

• Two movements from a Suite (or Partitia) - A series of dances in the same key
• Composed 1728 (late BAROQUE)
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• Inteneded for domestic perfomace (at home), to be played on the Harpsichord
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• The dances were stylised, and the original dance elements were weaked, allowing composers to invent freely.
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• Perfomrance directions are rare in Baroque - There are no dynamic markings or marks of articulation. No speeds are stated either, as musicians would know from experience of the dances.

• Ornaments were commonoly used - appogiatura (C# resolves to B) at bar 20

• Binary with repeats

• In both dances, the first sections finish in the dominant key (A major). Section section returns to the tonic through a variety of keys

• Unusually, the second section of the gigue is longer than the first (usually in Binary form ,the second section longer)
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• The Sarabande is a slow, triple-time dance - the second beat is emphasised either by length or accentuation (only obvious in bars 1-2, 14 and 29-30)
•  Elsewhere, bach uses a less dance-like semiquaver and demi-semiquaver movement

• The Gigue was traditionally in compund time, though the number of beats per bar was not firmly fixed - in this case the piece is in triple time

• There is an almost coninuous semiquaver movement, with longer dotted quaver chords

• Sarabande - the melody line is contiually evolved from a basic motif (Fortspinnung):
• Repition
• Sequence
• Variation of intervals
• Rhythmic variation

• The Gigue opens with a broken-chord pattern
• This then gives way to a more conjunct movement
• Occaisional chromaticism features in both dances

Functional:

• Cadences - Perfect and Imperfect
• Dominant 7ths (some inverted)
• Secondary 7ths
• Diminished 7th
• Neapolitan 6th
• Suspension

• Both Dances are in D major. This is cleary defined with:

- Cadences

- Modulations to related keys - A major at bar 12 and E minor at bar 24 of the Sarabande

• The Sarabande features a variety of textures:

- Homophony (bar 1)

- Monophony (bar 2)

- Two-part, with steady moving quaver bass supporting the more rhythmically involved upper part

- Free-voiced textures - a passage with varying numbers of parts (bars 11-12)

• The Giuge opens fugally - each part enters imitatively
• The second section opens with a new melody line, which becomes a countersubject to the original subject when it returens in bar 55

• Written for Harpsichord - smaller dynamic range and less sustaining power than the modern piano
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