Key points about J.S.Bach: Badinerie
J.S Bach was one of the most prominent composers of the Baroque period, 1600-1750. He came from a family of successful musicians.
This set work, Badinerie, is the last of seven movements from a larger piece called Orchestral Suite No.2.
The A collection of different dances in no particular order or pattern. also known as a dance suite, flourished in Germany between 1690 and 1740. Many of Bach's pieces took the form of a dance suite.
Bach referred to all four of his orchestral suites as ‘ouvertures’, possibly because of the long opening movements.
Remember
Bach called his orchestral suites ‘ouvertures’ but they referred to the whole suite. The first movement is also called an ‘ouverture’.
Video
Watch the video below to learn more about the different sections and Baroque style of Bach's Badinerie.
Presenter: Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685. He was a Baroque composer whose work shaped the history of classical music.
He wrote this badinerie between 1738 and 1739. It's for solo flute, strings and harpsichord, and is the last of seven movements in his orchestral suite Number Two. The piece is fast allegro and in binary form, with an A section followed by B section. Section A has two motifs, X and Y. A motif is a short musical idea. Motif X opens up the piece and is disjunct or leaping, based on a descending broken chord pattern in B minor.
And it's followed by motif Y, which has some conjunct or stepwise movement and an ascending melody.
Listen to that chromatic Neapolitan sixth chord in bar 35.
The badinerie is in 2/4, which means there are two crotchet beats in each bar. The melody features repeating patterns in quavers and semiquavers.
Let's hear them.
Both sections of the piece end on a perfect cadence. That means moving from the dominant or fifth chord onto chord one, the tonic.
Johann Sebastian Bach is regarded as the father of the Baroque era, which lasted from 1600 to 1750. Baroque music features ornamented melody lines and interweaving polyphonic textures.
Have a listen to the flute playing ornaments, their musical decorations such as trills and appoggiatura. It's early improvisation.Another feature of the Baroque era is the basso continuo, which means continuous bassline with chords. Let's hear the cellos and harpsichord.
And remember, this era came before the piano and the clarinet. Strings dominate the orchestration with woodwind adding color.
Let's hear how Bach builds the tension harmonically and shows off the flute in this piece.
Bach’s Orchestral Suites
Bach wrote his orchestral suites between 1724-1731. The instrumentation of these vary, but they always had a string orchestra at the foundation, with different woodwind and brass for each suite, depending on the instruments available to Bach at the time.
Bach composed the second suite between 1738 and 1739, for solo transverse flute, strings and continuo. There are seven movements, with the Badinerie is the last:
I. Ouverture
II. Rondeaux
III. Sarabande
IV. Bourée
V. Polonaise
VI. Menuet
VII. Badinerie
The term Badinerie translates as 'teasing' in French. The movement has a light-hearted character and its speed and versatility has been enjoyed by many Someone who plays the flute. over the years. The transverse flute in the Baroque period was wooden with very few keys. It sounds different to the modern transverse flute played in the video.
Like most Baroque dances, the Badinerie is in The structure of a piece of music which is divided into two different sections. It is usually written as an AABB or AB form. (AB), with each section being repeated. The key of the movement is B minor. Section B is slightly longer than A. Section A ends in the dominant of F# minor, and section B returns to B minor. This is typical of many Baroque dances, including the Bourée and Rondeaux, both found in this suite.
The Baroque style
The Badinerie is full of Baroque features.
The use of the continuo section is one of the most distinctive features of the Baroque period. A continuo section usually comprises a chordal instrument for example, a harpsichord, organ or lute and a single cello. The role of the continuo was to read the A form of notation where numbers are added to a bassline indicating intervals to be added above the bass note to create a chord. and play chords to fill in the harmonies intended by the composer.
The use of repeated musical ideas and motifs was also typical of the Baroque period, especially as part of different movements within a dance suite. Listen to the other dance movements in this orchestral suite and see if you can hear the repeated ideas and even identify the form.
The melodies are often decorated. You can hear this in the Badinerie as the melody is naturally ornate in its semiquavers, but there are also trills.
Terraced dynamics were achieved by all instruments playing the same dynamic. Sometimes a composer would repeat a section more quietly.
Section A
Section A begins in B minor and finishes in F# minor – the dominant.
In this movement, the music passes briefly through the related key of A major before moving to F# minor.
The A combination of simultaneous sounds including chords, accompaniment and counterpoint that can support a melody. is diatonic throughout this movement, meaning the chords are major or minor. Perfect and imperfect cadences end phrases and the chords are mainly in root position or first inversion.
There are two themes, which we can call x and y.
Theme x is the descending broken arpeggio, and theme y is mainly conjunct semiquaver movement.
These ideas are repeated and developed in section A.
Watch the video clip to hear the x and y motifs.
Most of the This describes how layers of sound within a piece of music interact. is A texture where a melody is played and it is accompanied. with the transverse flute playing the melody with the strings and continuo accompanying. The 1st violins often play an undecorated version of the melody while the flute plays semiquavers.
There are no dynamic markings indicated in the Badinerie. The dynamics are terraced dynamics, meaning that all instruments would play the same dynamic marking with no crescendos or diminuendos.
Question and answer
What is the Circle of Fifths?
When the chord sequence moves by an interval of a fifth, eg C major - G major, D major - A major, this is a strong chord progression. The Circle of Fifths provides a map of these strong chord progressions in any key.
Section B
Section B begins in the dominant key, F# minor. The music passes though E minor, A major, D major and returns to B minor.
Like Section A, the harmonic is diatonic throughout, with cadences at the ends of phrases. At bar 35, there is a Neapolitan chord, which is a flattened supertonic chord in first inversion. This gives some harmonic interest to the section.
The melodic ideas of x and y can be heard in Section B. As well as the bassline, the cellos play a melodic sequence using motif x from bar 282.
There is some textural interest in bars 33-34 where the upper strings play in dialogue with the solo flute, playing fragments of A musical idea which is often developed in a piece. x.
Remember
In binary form (AB), the music usually moves from the tonic to the dominant key by the end of section A, and then returns to the tonic key by the end of Section B.
Question and Answer
Identify a key difference between the Baroque flute and the modern flute.
The Baroque flute does not have many keys and is made of wood.
In pictures: Bach's Badinerie
Image caption, A Baroque ensemble playing an orchestral suite.
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Question and Answer
What is the term that describes when all of the instruments play the same dynamics - for example all piano or all forte?
Terraced dynamics
