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The short answer
A teaching piece with a history before its familiar title. Three-Part Sinfonia No. 2, BWV 788 is a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach from the Baroque era. PlayPiano puts it at Level 6, an estimate.
- sinfonia
- Baroque
- melancholic
History
Three-Part Sinfonia No. 2, BWV 788 belongs to Bach's three-part Sinfonias. The earlier teaching notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann was begun in Köthen on 22 January 1720. Bach made a separate fair copy of the collection in 1723, revising its presentation and order. These dates mark stages in the collection's history, not the exact day this individual piece was composed. The collection reached print in 1801, long after Bach's lifetime.
Sources
What to listen for
Fragments continue
Hear pieces of the subject develop through shifting sequences.
How to practise it
Hear the high opening contour before its later inner-voice repeat.
- Practise the six moving eighths into the two longer G notes.
- Count the silence, then practise the answering contour while the earlier line continues.
How hard is it
The compound-meter opening mixes dotted-quarter groupings, sustained lines, ornaments and later sixteenth-note runs. Three-part balance and maintaining the pulse through rests and ties make this a provisional intermediate-to-later-intermediate placement.
About this piece
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Source
- mutopiaproject.org
More by Johann Sebastian Bach
- Prelude in C major, BWV 846Level 4, estimatedOpen to everyone
- Two-Part Invention No. 1 in C major, BWV 772Level 5, estimatedWith Maestro
- Italian Concerto in F major, BWV 971: III. PrestoLevel 9, estimatedWith Maestro
