Johann Sebastian Bach - booksnow.scholarsportal.info

—PARTITAS IN "CLAVIERÜBUNG." 165suite.The Courante, the Sarabande, and the Gigue are allthere, but before the Sarabande are inserted two Gavottesand two Passepieds, and after it two Bourrees—a series sonumerous that they cannot be called Intermezzi, but mustclaim to be of equal importance with the other movements.It was the special privilege of the orchestral suite that itmight have an irregular and arbitrary number of dances,and this treatment is carried on even beyond the Gigue.Bach has finished his orchestral suite in B minor with aBadinerie, and one of the two in D major with a Rejouissance.In this case an Echo closes the series ; it is in a dance form,without exhibiting any definite type. It takes its name fromcertain imitations of the effect of an echo, which areespecially charming from the fact that the phrases are notrepeated exactly, but with soft, supplementary passing notes,as if the sound became indistinct in the distant repetition,as, for instance :Bach, of course, had no intention of imitating the orchestralstyle on the clavier. This would indeed have beensuperfluous, for there was so much of his clavier stylein his compositions for the orchestra that when the orchestraform was transferred to the clavier it prospered quitenaturally. He only requires the hearer to approach thiswork in the same frame of mind as that in which he wouldlisten to an orchestral suite ;just as the Italian concertocan only have its full effect upon one who knows whata real concerto of that time was like. Both works havesome intrinsic connection, which may explain why Bachchose to unite them into a part of the Ciavierübung bythemselves. They are reflections on the surface, as it were,of clavier music, of forms which were invented for a numberof different instruments. An outward bond of union betweenthem is that, for the proper performance of both, aharpsichord with two manuals was requisite. As regardsthe character of the separate sections of this partita, thenature of the original model is plainly perceptible. It is