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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G major for violoncello Solo, Minuets I and II

I had some trouble with this one like Kyle, but I'll give it my best shot.

In the first Minuet, the A section was expository. I called it tonally open but since one of my collegues called it closed, maybe I have my definitions mixed up. It ends on a half cadence so I don't feel like it's a complete unit. The B section has a few of the same rhythmic motives, but it's not close enough to call A'. The instability in the tonality of B leads me to call it developmental and then finally terminative for the last two measures ending on a PAC in the original key of G. This is in Simple Binary form.

In the second Minuet the A section is also expository. (If you see these two as one piece though, I would call this another developmental section where we play around with the tonality.) The key is usually g minor but other keys get tonicized throughout. It's hard to say what the cadence is at the end of this section, but I'd say HC. The B section once again is unstable and plays around with the tonality of the piece, but ends in a PAC. This makes this Minuet in Simple Binary form as well.

I'm not sure if we were supposed to look at the piece as a larger whole because that changes the whole analysis because it becomes more of a Da Capo aria type thing instead of a simple binary little song. That's all I got.

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