Three Partitas for solo violin (1720)

The difference between the sonata and the partita is the same as the difference between the sonata and the suite - which is that the latter is made up of dance movements while the former excludes them. With the not very significant exceptions that Sonata No.1 includes a Siciliana and Partita No.3 begins with a Preludio, the rule applies to Bach’s three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin. But if the rule is taken to imply that there is some sort of class distinction between them, that the sonatas with their fugal second movements are intellectually superior to the partitas, it certainly does not apply. There is no greater intellectual challenge anywhere in Bach’s music than the great chaconne that ends Partita No.2 in D minor. The Brahms and Busoni piano transcriptions of the Ciaccona in D minor are both of them efforts to get to grips with the implications of a composition that tests the resources of the violin to its limits - or even, particularly where the modern violin is involved, with its high-arched bridge and its concave bow, beyond them.

Although he might have started composing them in Weimar a few years earlier, Bach assembled the three Sonatas and three Partitas in one volume (alternating the sonatas with the partitas) in 1720 when he was working at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen. They were first published by Simrock in Bonn in 1802 and since then every generation has interpreted them in its own way, usually following the approach prescribed in the editions issued by the leading violinists of the day, beginning with Ferdinand David in 1832 and including Carl Flesch in 1930 and Max Rostal in 1982. Strangely however, while great violinists like Joachim, Busch and Enescu have devoted themselves religiously to these works, few composers have attempted to emulate them. There are more or less familiar examples by Hindemith, Bloch and Bartók but only Ysayë has succeeded in completing a set of solo violin works in any way comparable to Bach’s.

Partita No.3 in E major (BWV 1006)

Preludio

Loure

Gavotte en rondeau

Menuets 1 et 2

Bourrée

Gigue

The Partita in E major is the least imposing of the three. Beginning with a vigorous Preludio rather than a thoughtful allemande, it is otherwise made up of four popular French dances together with a rare example of the Loure, the 6/4 step of which effectively offsets the lighter movements round it. As its title implies, the Gavotte en rondeau is based on the several reappearances of its cheerful main theme, while the two Menuets alternate with each other, the second of them presenting the violinist with a considerable problem when it postulates a pedal note sustained for three bars over the melodic line in the opening bars. Although Bach rarely offers dynamic markings in these works, the echo effects of the Bourrée are specifically required in the score. The Gigue is a lively example of (as the cello suites confirm) Bach’s favoured form of finale.

Partita No.1 in B minor (BWV 1002)

Allemanda - Double

Corrente - Double: presto

Sarabanda - Double

Tempo di Borea - Double

The construction of the Partita in B minor is unique in that each movement is followed by a “Double” or variation. The dotted rhythms of the elaborately decorated and richly harmonised Allemande is transformed into a flight of semiquavers consistently even in rhythm but subtly varied in phrasing. Already fluently mobile as initially presented, the Corrente becomes an even quicker study in semiquaver scales and arpeggios, while the stately Sarabanda is converted into a 9/8 kind of gigue. The Tempo di Borea (or bourrée) runs into a series of quavers minimally but effectively broadened by the occasional crotchet.

Partita No.2 in D minor (BWV 1004)

Allemanda

Corrente

Sarabanda

Giga

Ciaccona

Much though he liked to end with a gigue, the Giga in the Partita in D minor precedes the most extended finale in any of Bach’s works for violin or cello. Indeed, the whole work seems to be shaped to make the most of the concluding chaconne, which is confirmed not ony by the position of the Giga but also by an unusually lithe Allemanda with almost no double stopping to add weight to it. Strategically placed betwen the Corrente and the Giga, the Sarabanda is certainly one of the most beautiful examples of its kind but it is short and in no way a distraction from the (as Brahms described it) “whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings” represented by the Ciaccona. In structural terms it is a series of 64 four-bar variations on a four-chord harmonic progression expressed in an elaborated melodic form as the bass line of the theme introduced in the first four bars. Bach might not have expected it to be heard in that kind of detail but he surely intended that the ear should perceive at least the overall symmetry of the piece, which is divided into two equal halves with the opening four-bar theme repeated in its original form after the first thirty variations and again at the end. The structure could also be heard as a ternary pattern: after the return of the sarabande theme in the middle of the piece, the key changes to D major and remains in that key long enough to form a distinct and substantial middle section before the return to D minor.

Gerald Larner ©2005