Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, Volumen One

Abstract

PARTITA No. 1 IN B MINOR

This is certainly one of Bach’s most unusual creations: what would have been a suite of four dance movements is stretched out to eight, for each movement – Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Bourree (marked Tempo di Bourre in the autograph) – is followed by a “double”: a pastel-shaded variant characterized by perfectly equal note values and a near total absence of chords. The “doubles” flow like toothpaste from a tube, and strict attention is required of the listener, who must provide his own punctuation and phrasing.

The first partita opens with an impassioned Allemande. The dominant rhythmic figure is a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note, often heavily decorated, but never fully obscured.

The Courante is remarkably like the preceding Double, both in its lack of chords and its rather shapeless rhythmic structure.

After three completely linear movements, the return of polyphony in the Sarabande is welcome. The melody tells us the Sarabande is, or was, a stately dance, but the effort which the violinist must exert to wrench have been the most flowing melody yet.

The chunky little Bourree is one of the most popular movements in the Bach repertory, and has been heard many times in arrangements for larger ensembles. So distinctive are its pointy little rhythmic “ears”, the memory of them creates non-existent markers in the Double which follows. Perhaps because this Double must serve as the conclusions for the entire partita, Bach relents a bit and gives us a few chords to fatten things up.