Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 10:01:29 -0500
From: Kathie Hollandsworth
To: Cyberpluckers
Subject: Re: [CP] Tunes "lying" well on the 'harp (was Diatonic
'harps)
As usual, Siegfried's post is very astute :-)) The Minuet in G from the
Little Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook is widely taught to young students and
known so well that it is the one people automatically think of when they
hear the title "Minuet in G". Of course, a minuet is a dance, like a waltz
or many other dance forms, and the composers of that era wrote tons of
minuets, and lots of them were in G. They didn't indicate the key in the
title as a rule. I've been meaning to pull the music out and analyze the
chords too, to see how I would compare with Bob's version. If I recall
correctly, there are not many, if any, full chords written in, but only one
treble note and one bass note sounding, and you have to imply the
harmonization from those, and from your ear.
In anthologies of easier piano pieces, the 2 from the "Anna" notebook that
are usually included are the Minuet in G and its companion in G minor, which
is a beautiful tune that would also be delightful arranged for autoharp,
even if it had to be transposed to another minor key !
Kathie
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:17 AM, Siegfried Knoepfler wrote:
Following an initiative by Ron Bean, I began working again on the
well known Minuet in G by J.S.Bach, for which Bob Lewis published an
arrangement for diatonic (two-key) autoharp a few weeks ago. I learned this
piece to play on my 'harp around 1983 from sheet music I got from a
colleague who was playing alto recorder: The notation contained therefore
only the melody line and it was printed in the key of Bb. Since playing it
in Bb didn't sound well on the OS 21 chords 'harp I used in those days, I
simply moved my left hand fingers down two positions and played it in the
key of C for all the years. I felt that in this key the tune was optimally
positioned within the range of the standard OS string schedule.
My old arrangement differs considerably from Bob's. In order to find
reasons for one or the other I consulted the library of my old university
and looked up the original in the complete Bach works edition, where I found
it in "Klavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach" (1725). In both of the
Klavierbüchlein (literally: little piano book), the 1722 and the 1725 one,
there are altogether 10 minuets (my count), all simply called "Menuet"
without a key reference in the name; at least 3 of them are written in the
key of G, among them the one in question, Menuet, BWV Anh. 114. (So I wonder
why just this one is usually referred to as Bach's Minuet in G.)
--
John and Kathie Hollandsworth
700 Tower Rd.
Christiansburg, VA 24073
540-382-6550
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