Updated Courante

Hi all, I'm currently working on refining my Keyboard Suite. A movement which has received a fairly substantial update is the Courante. It's basically a two-part invention. The original idea was to overhold notes in the RH in the first part, and in the LH in the second part. I thought a much better idea was to just escalate the overholding, culminating in a (pseudo-) four part texture with the final theme entry. A lot of the score has been renotated as a result.

All comments welcome!

Hi @muchen_,

I feel with this update the courante almost becomes Bach's two part invention in Bb major with that same rhythm! I like how you add the parts and changing some of the notes for fuller chords instead of ambiguous chords, and some of the voice-leading to make it even more fluent. Thanks for your update!

Henry

I love this. Part B is gorgeous when then sequence comes in.

Just one thing to be perfect (in my opinion): the anacrusis should be respected (end of bar 14, and in the very last bar).

On 3/13/2023 at 6:35 PM, Luis Hernández said:

I love this. Part B is gorgeous when then sequence comes in.

Just one thing to be perfect (in my opinion): the anacrusis should be respected (end of bar 14, and in the very last bar).

Hi Luis, I'm glad you liked it! You raise a very good point regarding the anacrusis.

Interestingly, the two 3/2 courantes in Bach's Keyboard Partitas are notated exactly this way (i.e. in 5/4 time in the measures before repeats) whereas they're notated in the usual way in his English Suites. It leaves one wondering why a quaver beat is omitted. Nonetheless, all recordings I've listened to suggests that the quaver beat is not to be omitted in practice, so I've edited the score and playback.

I'm a big fan of the descending sequence beginning in mm. 29 too. There's something really nice about the preceding Eb in the bass leading to the sequence!