Essay on Minuet in G by J.S. Bach.

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Essay on Minuet in G by J.S. Bach.

This familiar minuet by J.S. Bach is in the key of G major as we can obviously see by the title: “Minuet in G”. The time signature, also known as the metre is 3 crotchet beats in a bar. As it is a Minuet, the speed of the piece is quite steady- andante (at a walking pace). J.S. Bach wrote this piece especially for the harpsichord and for his wife who played the harpsichord. I believe that it wasn’t written for the piano especially as pianos were just being invented and therefore were not as popular as the harpsichord.

        This Minuet is in two sections; ‘A’ and ‘B’. The piece is in Binary as the piece is played like this: A:|| B:||. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections are equal in length and are quite similar, with both having simple rhythms although in the ‘B’ section, new things are introduced and many ‘A’ section rhythms have been modified.

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        The texture of this piece is contrapuntal although in a few places the texture becomes monophonic but then changes back to polyphonic. Throughout the piece there is rhythmic repetition and the right hand melody is a mixture of disjunct motion and conjunct motion. The left hand has longer rhythms, which creates a contrast between the two hands.

         In the ‘A’ section, there are not as many distinct comments as the ‘B’ section but there are some things to say about it. To begin with, in bar 5 and 6, there is a sequence as the first note in bar 6 ...

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