Topic > Baroque Music: The Critique of the Baroque Ear

Grinberg played Partita No.4 in D major (1728) by the famous composer JS Bach. Bach was a prolific composer, composing over 1,000 keyboard compositions, and is revered for the musical intricacies and stylistic innovations of his work. The game played was one of his six games, which are stylized dance suites. Like Scarlatti's sonatas, Bach's Partitas were originally composed for keyboard practice; they were not intended to be performed. Also similar to Scarlatti's sonatas, Bach'spartita was expressed in the popular Baroque binary form. The Match had a spontaneous structure; each movement began with a different structure. The match opened with a French overture. The first movement had a slow, dotted rhythm, while the second movement displayed a livelier rhythm with imitative polyphony, a structure favored in Baroque compositions. Next were two dance suites, a moderately paced Allemande in a quadruple meter, followed by a Courante, which is triple paced for a livelier pace. Like Scarlatti, Bach's musical works were also creative and inventive, making them a little ahead of their time. After the two dance suites Bach added an unusual additional movement entitled “Air” which took the form of an area. The remaining three dance suites were a Spanish Sarabande, the same dance suite that Handel used in his Chaconne in G major. The Sarabande uses a chromatic scale with dissonant harmonies, which we hear a lot about in the Baroque era. Then came a French minuet, expressed in three metres. Later in the Classical period, every symphony and string quartet included a minuet as a moderate third movement. The fourth and final movement of the Partita was an exhilarating jig in which Bach creatively reversed the subject. Although it was a particularly long piece, Bach's rhythmic vitality and creativity made this work very festive and pleasant to listen to