Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Were the Bach Dance Suites meant to be danced to?

Or were they just based on dance forms but not intended to be danced to?

I'm talking about the French and English Suites and the Partitas.

I have never heard - or read anywhere - that the French Suites, the English Suites or the Partitas are anything other than idealized or abstract music, not meant for dancing. While the various Baroque suites may well have evolved from Renaissance dance forms that were used to accompany dancing, I can't imagine the works mentioned serving such a purpose.

Regards,

I agree with Bruce. I think they're very similar in this respect to the Chopin Mazurkas. The Bach could be danced to, but it would require a rhythmically constrained performance of the music. BTW I have played Chopin mazurkas for dance things, and had to rhythmically constrain them.

Something that I think is relevant to keep in mind for a question like this is the differences between playing on a piano and on a harpsichord. On a harpsichord, I think the expressiveness depends more on rhythmic flexibility, because of the lesser dynamic flexibility. (We often think of rhythmic flexibility as a Romantic thing, but IMO that's mistaken.) If this is so, then it means that in order to play the Bach for dancing in his day (and in Bach's mind), even more of the usual expressiveness would need to be omitted than would be obvious to us pianists.


I'm answering only from what I consider the internal evidence of the music, not from what Bach or anyone else at the time said about this, which I don't know. Using only this approach, I think it would be harder to answer the same question about some other types of pieces, like the Chopin Waltzes. I don't know if those were "meant" to be danced to, but I think they could be without nearly the same degree of complication.

You could always search out a copy of Dance and the Music of J S Bach.

The thought of dancing a Bach minuet to the crabby sound of an harpsichord (please note the educated “an” chaps) is more than this Cock Sparrow can stand.

Why not wait for later years ... and those jolly dance routines which Charles Dickens described so poignantly in his famous Pickwick Papers.

However, I prefer to sit on my backside
(bum in ghastly slang) and watch the TV cricket.

It's nice (positively grand) to be posh.

I wondered the same thing for a while, PL'us, until I ran across a copy of this at the li-bree:



which said in the introduction pretty much what Bruce said, but with thicker diction.

Still can't find the "an" switch to my harpsichord, and so it remains "aff." Sorry, btb.

--Andy

BruceD is absolutely correct, much akin to the Chopin Waltzes.

If I could only own one book on baroque performance practice, it would be this one. Every serious pianist should have a copy. It's excellent.

It would be incorrect to use the 'educated an' before harpsichord anyway. It should only be used before words beginning with H when the first syllable is unstressed.

My question was prompted when I was thinking about some master classes last summer where Magdalena Baczewska was doing some demonstrations of the Sarabande for students who were playing some Bach. I guess it was just her way of making the students aware of what these dances looked like so they could have a better idea of how to interpret this music.

There is some Youtube series which shows each of the Baroque dances in great detail, but I forget it's name.

I've read that about the Chopin Waltzes but I've also read that Chopin liked to improvise at dances so I wonder if there is some conflict in these two ideas?

I can see it now, new reality show: So You Think You Can Sarabande...

Just a guess, but I believe there was definitely a divide between improvising at the dances and composing waltzes. He went to dances and improvised waltzes that were meant to be danced to, and he also composed his waltzes that we are familiar with, which were not really meant to be danced to.

If you were in East End London 'an 'arpsichord' would be de rigueur.

Just for fun......

http://youtu.be/D5uldHVtGWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMAWGiHDyxw&feature=share&list=PLD854BF73CD956865

http://youtu.be/UFn9HHs7KgY

Herr Bach is probably the danciest of the major composers. All his stuff has been endlessly choreographed, probably the most famous being Mr B's Concerto Barocco; plus most of the Brandenburgs. His comps are all off-the-ground as we say in the biz. He is as fresh and interesting as he was centuries ago. Almost everything he wrote could be successfully choreographed. And yes, I have the book and yes, I play something of his every day...on the job. And all of my principals describe those crappy TV dance shows as "hideous..."

Sounds absolutely right, and to me using the "an" where he did would be.....what to call it.....an affectation.
However, with btb's posts, I think we have to look at everything as a possible partial put-on, and I didn't think the "an" was any more of a possible put-on than 90% of the rest of what he says.

Plus....there's a fly in this ointment.

As I understand, there are some Brit dialects in which almost all initial h's are silent, and oddly also an initial vowel gets an h sound in front of it. Or maybe it's a caricature rather than an actual dialect, I'm not sure. Anyway the old joke goes:

"'Arrison!! I said my name's 'Arrison!!! A haitch, a hay, two har's, a hi, a hess, a ho, and a hen. 'Arrison!"

So....in that dialect, harpsichord would be pronounced 'arpsichord -- and it would get an "an." And if btb speaks that dialect (after all we don't know)....

Thank you very much.

I guess that's what I meant too, it just took me a little longer to say.

More likely to be "gas-lit maude" methinks.

Can anyone actually imagine Bach dancing? If he did he would be the classical equivalent of a break dancer....

OOOOh I say sir, have you seen mr.Bachs dance moves? His legs are moving in counterpoint to each other, quite difficult to master without the written choreography to hand.

a dance version of a fugue, Bach starts, legs akimbo, others join in later but by the time they get it , he is on to something more complex, left leg moving in twos, right leg flailing in threes.

Banned by the church as innapropriate for the ladies to observe on a sunday.

I think we may be oversimplifying things just a bit. While Bach's dances weren't necessarily meant as accompaniment for dance, that doesn't mean the dances are irrelevant. I think the character and sense of motion for the dances matters very much and should be captured in performance, and I think knowing something about the dances is very useful for the pianist.

Just as a knowledge of ballet is extremely useful for understanding Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. I think people grossly underestimate the influence of classical ballet on Prokofiev's piano sonatas, for example.