a little Bach

This lovely, short movement from Bach’s 6 Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin has been on my mind recently—mostly because I just really love it, but also because I almost always have at least one movement of solo Bach rattling around my brain. Sometimes the movement du jour feels like a mystery that I’m trying to solve; sometimes it feels like a friend I’m trying find the perfect birthday gift for; other times, it’s like a place I can’t wait to visit…suffice it to say, solo Bach is a kind of obsession (which I think is true for many violinists).

Bach’s 6 Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin stretch the limits of how many distinct musical lines can come from a single instrument at once (imagine a choir singing in four parts; now imagine one violin playing all of those parts at once!). The depth of musical and technical challenges Bach creates means that these works loom large—sometimes intimidatingly so—within the violin repertoire. You could spend a lifetime working on them.

In that vein, I love revisiting movements of solo Bach that I learned when I was younger because there are always new layers to peel away and new challenges to discover. They feel like old friends whom I get closer to every time I play them. The third movement of the A minor Sonata is one that I return to a lot in my own practice; it’s one of my favorites from all of the sonatas and partitas, and one that feels both easier (technically) and harder (musically) to play as I get older.

Probably the most striking feature of this movement is that Bach writes almost constant pedal tones (repeated notes in the lowest voice/line) that support the primary melody. The effect is that of a beautiful "heartbeat" that pulses throughout the piece; it gives the piece a very vocal—or, maybe just a very human—quality that I find equal parts charming and moving.

Anyway, all that to say—listen to this! James Ehnes plays this movement extremely nicely in this video. Listen for the heartbeat, or for the gorgeous harmonies, or for the sweet melodies (or for all of the above), and maybe you will also have this movement on your mind for awhile.