Correct rhythm in the Gigue from Bach's BWV 830

[nw746]

Should the Gigue from Bach's E minor partita be played like this:



Or like this?



And if the latter, how should one distinguish between two semiquavers followed by a quaver, vs. a quaver followed by two semiquavers? Should the semiquavers be shortened to triplet semiquavers, or should both patterns be played as triplet quavers?

[iansinclair]

A Gigue was a dance -- in compound triple time.  Therefore... the second example is correct.  The first is horrible!  In the example, there are eight triplets in each measure -- what may be a little confusing is that sometimes the whole triplet is designated by a single crotchet; sometimes by a crotchet followed by a quaver.  I'm a little puzzled by your second question, however, as unless I'm missing something I see no semiquavers...

[nw746]

The first one is the way it's written in the score; the second is the way it's performed by numerous musicians, including András Schiff, Christophe Rousset and Trevor Pinnock.

The semiquavers are later on:


If one is playing it as shown in my second example above, how do you differentiate the rhythms left hand in bar 10 from the rhythms in the right hand in bars 12-13? That was my question. Schiff, Rousset, Pinnock, & others don't do it at all, and play them as undifferentiated triplet quavers, but I feel like that must be wrong and Bach wouldn't have distinguished between those two rhythms if that's what he meant.

[iansinclair]

Triple time is a bear, isn't it?  In any beat including semiquavers, I would play the semiquavers as equal subdivisions of the corresponding quaver, and the written quaver would occupy the time of the other two quavers of the triplet.

If that makes sense...