Sarabande and Gigue - J.S. Bach

Background

• Two movements from a suite or Partita, which is a series of dances usually in the same key
• Composed in 1728 - late Baroque era
• Intended for domestic performance on a harpsichord

Rhythm and Metre

• Sarabande is a slow, triple time dance...
• In which the second beat of the bar is emphasised either by length or accentuation
• This trait is only obvious in bars 1-2, 14 and 29-30
• Elsewhere, Bach uses less dance-like semiquaver and demisemiquaver movement

(Rhythm and metre continued)

• The gigue is in triple time
• There is an almost continuous semiquaver movement with longer (dotted quaver) chords

Melody

• In the Sarabande, the melody line is continually evolved from a basic motif
• This process (termed Fortspinnung) involves:
• Repetition and sequence
• Variation of intervals
• Rhythmic variation
• Gigue opens up with a broken-chord pattern, which then gives way to a more conjunct movement
• Occasional chromaticism features in both dances

Harmony

• Functional with
• Cadences
• Dominant 7ths (some inverted)
• Secondary 7ths
• Diminished 7th
• Neapolitan 6th
• Suspensions

Tonality

• Both dances are in D major, clearly defined by:
• Cadences
• Modulations to related keys, for example A major at bar 12 and E minor at bar 24 of the Sarabande

Structure

• Binary with repeats
• In both dances, the first sections finish in the dominant key and then return to the tonic through a variety of related keys in the second section
• Unusually, the second section of the Gigue is the same length as the first

Resources/Texture

• Written for harpsichord, so intended for an instrument with a smaller dynamic range and less sustaining power than the modern piano
• Sarabande features a variety of textures:
• Homophony (bar 1)
• Monophony (bar 2)
• Two-part counterpoint with steadily moving quaver bass supporting the more rhythmically involved upper part

(Resources/Texture continued)

• Free-voiced textures, that is a passage with varying numbers of parts (bars 11-12)
• The Gigue opens fugally with each part entering imitatively
• The second section opens with a new melody line which becomes a countersubject to the original subject when it returns in bar 55