Partita III in E major Preludio
After composing the arduous, emotional weight of the Partita II Chaconne, Johann Sebastian Bach did not cease his creations of harmonic brilliance; the Partita III in E major Preludio, which follows directly after, reclaims the breath of the audience that was taken away by the heart wrenching final page of the Chaconne and keeps it held until the ninth measure. The descending two-octave sweep of sixteen sixteen-notes that are stretched out over six measures is mirrored and reversed, then goes back up through an ascending two octave scale from measures seven to nine. The Preludio is just what its name entails: a prelude to a Loure, or slow French baroque dance and four other dances. It is an invocation of God into the church, a movement that closely resembles a chorale if one takes away the ornamentation. The whole piece oscillates from large waves to smaller waves, frequent iterations to larger and wider expanses of repetition, until finally smoothening into a singular line: the completion of God’s invocation.
From measures seventeen to twenty-nine, the reverberating open E is the x- axis. Every note that deviates from that E in a brilliant forte oscillates around this constant, forming a wave. The persistently resounding E makes more apparent the deep, echoing hint of the descending bass line, until we land on the lowest note, the G#, which takes the place of the E as the x- axis for the next eight measures. The G# resonates on the first note of the bar and the notes above and below crest and peak with slight hesitance, as they switch undecidedly between forte and piano. The effect echoes a clock striking eight, and the low C# that follows, signals the start of mass at which point voices of the lower registers begin to permeate throughout. Gradually, sopranos intertwine themselves and the two waves operate concurrently on the same axis, which is now the key of C#. The layers and layers of bass lines and growing scales embed themselves in the air until the very dust particles visible to the eye, floating through the hall, are brimming with complex rhythms and chorale voices. When the pews are filled and the curtains are opened, these pockets of sound burst and announce the arrival at the glorious peak of the scale. The cadenza. However, contrary to its name, the final catharsis of sound lives on for eighteen bars in a booming, prideful fortissimo. The underlying beat pattern emphasizing the second beat in each measure propels the music forward and higher until the space, the entire Church, grows larger with the polyphonies and transcendent harmonies of J.S. Bach. Until every person sitting in a pew is lifted out of his seat. Until the room is warmed with the rays of sunlight pouring through the stained glass windows. And finally, until the interplay between three oscillating voices collapses into a unifying F#.
The piece flows through the keys built on the first six degrees of the scale in varying degrees of undulation. It never strays too far into a distant key and concentrates inversions of melodies, long-range harmonic structures, and divine cadences into one hundred and thirty measures of sixteenth notes. When boiled down to its harmonic essence, the piece is just a wave, starting on the tonic E major, ascending on its dominant, reaching the cadenza, and slowly returning back home to E major.
PC: Audrey Roh
