Bach - Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo (edition Barenreiter). You can download the PDF sheet music Bach - Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo (edition Barenreiter) on this page. The technique of double-stopping and chord-playing was essentially of Italian origin; it was in Italy, too, that the sonata as a form was cultivated, whereas the partita evolved more in France and England. But it was not only ingenious multiple stopping that Bach was familiar with; he also knew how to use "bariolage," a timbral effect in which the higher notes are played on lower strings using appropriate fingerings. Because of this, these compositions have set many riddles for subsequent performers.
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The climax of all this polyphonic activity appears in the C major fugue of the Third Sonata, whose theme is also heard in inversion. Its motives are derived from the Whitsuntide hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus," which became a Protestant sacred song in Luther's translation as "Komm heilger Geist, Herre Gott." In Bach's time pieces like this were also performed in churches during Communion. The third movements are slow (Siciliano, Andante, or Largo) and form lyrical points of repose. Their wide-ranging cantilenas are often polyphonically constructed. In the monodic and always extremely virtuosic final Allegri Bach stresses the music's playfully concerto-like aspect.
The number of movements in the partitas varies, and each of these works has its own peculiarities. As in the "English" Suites for harpsichord, Bach's First Partita adopts the French idea of varying the four movements — Allemande, Corrente, Sarabande, and Bourrée ("Tempo di Borea") — by means of a Double. In the Second Partita, the four basic movements of the suite (Allemande, Corrente, Sarabande, and Gigue) are followed by that unique concluding Chaconne in D minor whose importance was very soon recognised by posterity and which nowadays is regarded quite simply as a solo violin "classic." Here a strongly syncopated theme gives rise to a long sequence of variations in which every possible angle of the thematic content is exhaustively treated by means of ever-different homo-phonic and polyphonic techniques, with compact chords, spacious arpeggios, and playful-sounding monodic lines. The Third Partita is full of natural charm and its six movements are very much allied to the customary dance forms. In these elegant small forms Bach deliberately forgoes a more marked stylisation; the wide-ranging and large-scale Preludio is followed by dances predominantly in keeping with what was fashionable at the time — Loure, Gavotte en Rondeau, Minuet I and II, Bourrée, and Gigue.
Sonata No. 1 BWV 1001 in G minor - g-moll - en sol
- Adagio
- Fuga (Allegro)
- Siciliana
- Presto
Partita No. 1 BWV 1002 in B minor - h-moll - en si
- Allemanda - Double
- Corrente - Double (Presto)
- Sarabande - Double
- Tempo di Borea - Double
Sonata No. 2 BWV 1003 in A minor - a-moll • en la
- Grave
- Fuga
- Andante
- Allegro
Partita No. 2 BWV 1004 in D minor - d-moll - en ré
- Allemanda
- Corrente
- Sarabanda
- Giga
- Ciaccona
Sonata No. 3 BWV 1005 in C • C-dur • en Ut
- Adagio
- Fuga
- Largo
- Allegro assai
Partita No. 3 BWV 1006 in E ' E-dur - en Mi
- Preludio
- Loure
- Gavotte en rondeau
- Menuet I II
- Bourrée
- Gigue
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