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Topic: Protocol for Bach's Menuet from Partita No. 1?  (Read 7418 times)

Offline m19834

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Protocol for Bach's Menuet from Partita No. 1?
on: July 21, 2010, 07:15:42 PM
Hello, I have a student who is wishing to audition for a Suzuki certification and one of the options for pieces she is playing in audition is the Menuet from Bach's Partita no. 1.  Upon listening to some YouTubes of performances, I realized that, in some cases, the Menuet II was played after the full Menuet I, with a return then to the Menuet I, though no repeats are indicated in the score.  Is that the protocol of some sort?  Not every performer did this, so I am not sure.

Thanks in advance!
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Offline birba

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Re: Protocol for Bach's Menuet from Partita No. 1?
Reply #1 on: July 21, 2010, 07:46:03 PM
Yes, that's usually the practise.

Offline nmitchell076

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Re: Protocol for Bach's Menuet from Partita No. 1?
Reply #2 on: July 22, 2010, 06:03:27 PM
From "Keyboard Interpretation from the 14th to the 19th century: An Introduction" by Howard Ferguson

Quote from: pg. 30
During the 17th century the court ballet of France added a large number of regional and other dances to the already established Allemande (= alaman) and Courante (= Coranto).  Some of these were these were the Minuet...

The organization of a more or less standard Suite form... consists of four contrasted national dances: the Allemande from Germany... the Corrente from Italy... or the Courante from France... the Sarabande from Spain... and the Gigue, or jig, from England... To this basic four-movement plan, later composers added further dances, known collectively in France as Galanteries... which could either follow or precede the gigue. Bach generally chose the latter alternative...

I mention this first section since in the Partita No. 1, the minuets I & II precede the final Gigue, so based on that and this text, I would classify the minuet as a "Galantery"



Quote from: pg. 32
In some suites, two or more dances of the same type appear side by side - particularly courantes and the various galanteries...

Pairs of galanteries together form tripartite structures (A B A) like the more familiar minuet and trio.  Thus Bourrees I and II in Bach's English Suite No. 1 in A are played consecutively with all the marked repeats, and are then followed by a return to Bourree I without its repeats

The last paragraph should clear things up.
Pieces:
Beethoven - Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2
Chopin - Nocturne in Bb minor Op. 9 No. 1
Debussy - "La Danse De Puck"
Somers - Sonnet No. 3, "Primeval"
Gershwin - Concerto in F
 

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