I've been reviewing my theory work by playing it and came upon this. It is beautiful and familiar. What is it?


It is the same melody twice, once in open score, and once transcribed to closed score. If the original is actually originally with these clefs, would that mean it's a vocal piece? In my mind I hear instruments, though.

Is this not Air on a G String by Bach?

This is not the beginning of the piece as I remember it, but it is very, very similar.

Betty

What we need, then, is someone who has the score of Air, or a recording, or both.

If those clefs are the same as the original, what instruments might they represent? An older style vocal score would have these as alto and tenor respectively, but it doesn't seem vocal. And the RCM might just have stuck in the clefs to make transcription trickier.

I have now been told that it is the Sarabande from the French Suite no. 1 in D minor BWV 812 by JS Bach.

By the way, what's the classical piece giving the theme of Procol Harum - "A Whiter Shade of Pale" ?
It sounds too like Air on G string, but not exactly. Or some other Bach piece ?

Procol Harum - "Repent Walpurgis" is also great, and has 2 if not more different classical theme sections in dialogue (organ vs piano). One sounds like Bach, other Tchaikovski (lifted exactly) ?

Yes it is -- I'll bet the author of your theory book transcribed it to open score himself, to create an exercise, i.e. it was originally in only 2 clefs.

Thank you for that additional information, pianojerome. So this would be a piece for the keyboard, I take it.

Yes, and it is a wonderful piece for the keyboard! Here is a recording:

http://pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=76

I'm just looking at the score. What's with the side by side stems in some of the measures of the Sarabande movement, instead of shared stems, complete with overlapping cross bars? Is it supposed to be that way or is it because of whatever printing systems was used?

I don't see anything to click for hearing a recording, though. **

** Edit: It's my system!

This is getting interesting. This excerpt looks like my hand drawn transcription, and unlike the way the notes were written in your link, pianojerome. Which would be like the original?

excerpt - written

Now assuming that this is the correct version, I notice that the three 1/8 notes after the dotted quarter in the bass are joined, while mine is a single 1/8 + 2 joined eighths. I remember that with Sarabandes, the top is played in simple time, i.e. 3/4 = 3 beats per bar, but the bottom is played in compound time = 2 beats per bar as though the left hand were in 6/8 time. That would explain the grouping of eighths. Can anyone confirm?

audio sample (# 3)
Audio Sample

It's to show the separate horizontal voices; sharing stems would imply vertical chords. The main idea here is that Bach wasn't thinking necessarily of chords (though he was certainly thinking of harmony), but rather of 4 separate parts, all played with 2 hands.

Really, the only difference between that printing and yours, is that one has 3 voices in the treble clef and 1 in the bass clef; and the other has 2 voices in the treble and 2 voices in the bass.

My first question is which is authentic. I have found 3 scores that look like mine, and then the score mentioned above. Which is the authentic original way in which it was first written?

I am looking in particular at the second and third lines of the Sarabande. Some of the notes are also slid over a little bit. I folowed a course in writing out notes last year through some borrowed material. The professor was stringent on dividing up the measure to reflect where the beat will fall and ever sense I hate it when in 4/4 time an eighth note takes up the space of half a measure.

So in this edition when a note is slid over I am assuming that it is actually intended to be played a little bit later. In other words Bach intended for the separate voices to be distinguinsed not only with individual degrees of loudness (you can voice the soprano as main melody by playing it slightly louder than the otehrs so that along the melodic line a pattern is established) - but he brings out the individual melodic voices by how they are placed within the beat: sort of individualized rubato of the separate voice as it were. Would that be correct(ish)?

I think it's just a way of fitting in the notes. Since the notes have separate stems, you can't put them directly below each other -- they simply don't fit.

When there are 2 notes in the treble clef, it's easy -- just have one stemmed up and the other stemmed down. But when there are 3 notes, the one in the middle has to be moved over for purposes of stemming clarity.

I'm not sure how Bach originally wrote it, but it's not unheard of for publishers to move voices/notes to different clefs. Beethoven sometimes wrote both the left hand and the right hand in the same bass clef, while leaving the treble clef completely blank (for example, the beginning of the 2nd movement of the Appassionata Sonata). He had his own reason for doing so, of course (maybe aesthetic?), but many publishers changed it by putting the right hand part in the treble clef. Same notes -- doesn't change how the music will sound. It just changes how the performer sees the score.

Pianojerome, I have just written out measures 9 - 12 & then the odd looking 17 & 18 of the Sarabande. It is very possible to fit the stems.

I suspect that it was deliberately done, because the spacing is good, and bad software messes up spacing. the middle notes are slid slightly to the right of the top and bottom notes in the treble clef. I suspect that they are actualy meant to be played just slightly after the other notes to give an effect and isolate those as a separate running melody. I was reading that in jazz deliberate time delays are done.

I suspect that it was indeed done to change how the music would sound. Otherwise it is simply a deliberately awkward cluttered looking score.

Please help if anyone can identify formally these pieces. They sounded FUN when I heard them many years ago... They may be transposed from what I noted 'by ear':

1) "Italian tarantella" (?) [I checked and it isn't the one from Tchaikovsky Nutcracker, nor popular tarantellas from various regions]. Not very hard, had a simple LH alternating pattern too.

EGC'BAG B B, ABC'BAB A G, F#GAGFnE G F, EFGFED E D...

2) Italian (or Latin?) choral piece with piano accompaniment. Words with "nymphe belle" (?)

EFGGFD E C, DEFFFE D , BCDDDB A A, BCBCCB C ...

I know many more bars of each if needed, maybe not the full original pieces.

With thanks to PianoSTREET members...

1) Tchaikovsky - Danse napolitaine
http://www.mutopiaproject.org/ftp/TchaikovskyPI/dansenapolitaine/dansenapolitaine-a4.pdf
Beware, the solo voice is for Bb trumpet so needs to be transposed back ! found out because the MIDI was just sounding 'off'.

2) Giovanni Gastoldi (~1550-1622)- Vezzosette Ninfe
http://wso.williams.edu/cpdl/sheet/gast-vez.pdf
Now, good exercise what to do with the 5-line SSATB on a piano...