While learning and learning about the Prelude to Bach’s G minor Lute Suite, I also came into contact with the suite’s Sarabande. This piece is famous among music theorists, because while it’s only forty measures long, those forty measures are action-packed, harmonically speaking. Here’s a performance by Evangelina Mascardi. I appreciate that Mascardi doesn’t play …
Tag Archives: lute
Bach’s Lute Suite in G minor
I don’t get a lot of music-related correspondence on LinkedIn, so I was surprised when a stranger wrote me a very nice message there about my deep dive into the Bach Chaconne. He mentioned that he was learning the prelude to the Lute Suite in G Minor, BWV 995, and that he liked Göran Söllscher’s …
Greensleeves
In fifth grade, my class studied the Middle Ages, which my fantasy-nerd self adored. I have a memory from that time of playing “Greensleeves” on the recorder. This memory is probably not accurate, though, because “Greensleeves” was much too hard for me to play. There are some tricky non-diatonic notes, and the two halves of …
Perpetual motion in Bach’s E major Violin Partita Prelude
In this crazy time, learning and analyzing Bach is an obsessive-compulsive activity that feels like an anchor of mental stability. In that spirit, I’m finding it therapeutic to dig into the famous prelude from the E major violin partita. It’s an example of “perpetual motion,” uniform note values played without interruption. Aside from measures 1, …
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Bach Chaconne – Gimme the Lute mix
While investigating the Bach Chaconne, I found this beautiful lute performance by Hopkinson Smith. It’s enlightening to compare Smith’s performance to Moran Wasser playing the Chaconne on 11-string guitar. The lute is less bright and resonant than guitar, but I like Smith’s playing better, he’s not as melodramatic. I couldn’t find any video of him playing …