IMSLP Forums

First of all, I'm new here. Hi! Now to business. I have to write an essay on a piece of music I have been given, composed by Bach and also his general instrumental/keyboard works. Herein lies the problem: The piece of music I have in my hand is entitled "Menuet" (a rather vauge title) and I have no BWV number for it. It starts in the key of A minor and moves to the key of C major before returning to the relative minor (assuming my reading of the score is accurate). I'm relatively certain it comes from one of the Notebook's for Anna Magdelena Bach, but the menuet in A minor listed on wikipedia does not appear to be the same piece I have (I found a performance of the piece-Minuet in A minor, BWV Anh. 120. - and it sounds nothing like the one I have to write about). Unfortunately, I'm unable to post a copy of what I have in order to help... Does anyone have any idea what I have? Also, any general information on J.S.Bach's instrumental/keyboard works would be appreciated greatly.

Many thanks
-Israfel-

EDIT: It has just occured that I do not know if this is the original key of the piece! I am madly checking the other Minuets from the notebooks as we speak.

At WIMA (http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/J.S.Bach.php) one can look up
several menuets of the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach.

Bach Minuets are rather rare, actually. There are certainly fewer of them than the standard dances contained in the usual keyboard suite (allemande, sarabande, courante, gigue). There is no minuet in the a-minor English Suite and the other minuets in those pieces and the French Suites are not in that key either. There are no qualifying minuets in the keyboard Partitas.

In looking over my copy of the BWV, I found a minuet in a minor from BWV 818a. It is in 3/8 with the right hand having a dotted-quarter e and the bass an a-minor arpeggio in the first bar. It modulates to C in the 2nd half. If this isn't the piece, please describe the first bar for us in similar detail.

--Sixtus

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e ... V_818a.pdf

Musicologist David Schulenberg, a former classmate of mine, writes of the minuet in BWV 818a "The minuet is clearly a mature work of Bach . . .. Indeed, despite its brevity, the minuet may be the most impressive movement of the entire suite, although its galant singing melody and flexible keyboard idiom . . .. distinguish it from the other movements." [The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach, Gollancz/Schirmer 1993]

--Sixtus
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