JS BACH ALLEMANDE FROM FRENCH SUITE NO 2

There are three things needed for playing the keyboard, said Bach’s son, CPE: ‘correct fingering, good embellishments, and good performance’. Nils Franke agrees

Key C minor Tempo Allemande Style Baroque Will improve your ✓ Voicing ✓ Articulation ✓ Phrasing

Bach’s six French Suites are seen as easier and shorter than the composer’s English Suites or Partitas.

And that’s what makes them such effective teaching music. The Allemande, or originally a German dance, was once a staple component of the keyboard suite. Often used as the opening of a multi-movement series of stylised dances, it set the scene for what was to follow. The present Allemande is no exception.

The Allemande is not a fast dance. The most important thing is to deduce the tempo from the texture of the music. The fastest notes, the demisemiquavers, should flow without sounding rushed. Work backwards from this pace to determine the underlying crotchet speed.

Some detailed thoughts about fingering. The way in which composer-performers write for their instrument is often connected to how they play it. In Bach’s case that’s an important element of understanding his keyboard writing. There were two overarching differences between early 18th keyboard fingering and what we use today:

(i) Rather than cross under with the thumb, players would frequently cross the third finger over the fourth or even fifth.

(ii) The thumb was a relatively recent equal to the other fingers. Here is what Bach’s son, CPE Bach, had to say on the topic: ‘my […] father told me that in his youth he used to hear great men who employed their thumbs only when large stretches made it absolutely necessary […] He was obliged to devise a far more comprehensive fingering and especially to enlarge the role of the thumbs and use them as nature intended.’

Consider how both points might change the way you play the opening two crotchet beats in the RH:

(i) G to D could be fingers 1 to 5, and the third or fourth finger crosses over onto the Eb.

(ii) And if you don’t use the thumb on the first note of bar 1, the third finger has to cross over onto the C and Eb in that phrase.

In the end you may not use either fingering, but experimentation such as this can take us a little closer to how the music may have been played at the time. It also means our aural (rather than kinaesthetic) memory of each phrase is strengthened through trying different fingerings.

It’s worth remembering that there are no articulation marks, dynamics or slurs in the score.

Contemporaneous advice of the period tended to suggest that ‘good’ performance was down to the performer’s ‘good taste’. Listen to the articulation Chenyin Li uses in her recording of the piece. Detaching the last semiquaver of a group of four from the following note/beat gives the music a light and elegant feel that really makes the connection to a dance-like sound. All quavers in the LH are to be played lightly detached.

The lines in the treble clef that have downward facing stems are a different voice/part to those with upward facing notes.

Separate both lines through using different dynamics. On the harpsichord, a performer would have needed to use timing (for example, by delaying the entry of a new voice) to offset one line from the other. It’s also a technique that works on the piano, of course.

Let’s use Bach’s own guidelines for the ornaments in bars 1 and 15.

The ornament in bar 1 starts on the upper note (F to Eb) whereas the inverted mordent in bar 15 starts on the note (Ab-G-Ab).

The use of the right pedal in Baroque music still polarises opinions.

It attracts strong views that are either for or against. I recommend a compromise: discreet, brief pedalling at specific cadence points. ■