Bach: Orchestral Suite No.2 in B minor, BWV 1067

Introduction

The source is a partially autograph set of parts (Bach wrote out those for flute and viola) from Leipzig in 1738–39.

1. Ouverture (In B minor. Metrical sign of the opening section is C; metrical sign of fugal section is 2; metrical sign of ending section, marked Lentement, is 3/4)
2. Rondeau – written Rondeaux by Bach (In B minor. Metrical sign is C)
3. Sarabande (In B minor. Metrical sign is 3/4), with a canon at the 12th between the flute (plus first violins) and the bass
4. Bourrée I/II (In B minor. Metrical sign is C)
5. Polonaise / Double (In B minor. Metrical sign for both is 3/4); the flute part is marked "Moderato e staccato" and the first violin part "lentement" (slowly)
6. Menuet (In B minor. Metrical sign is 3/4)
7. Badinerie (In B minor. Metrical sign is 2/4). Bach, in the autograph part, spells this "Battinerie".

Instrumentation: Solo "[Flute] traversiere" (transverse flute), violin I/II, viola, basso continuo.

The Polonaise is a stylization of the Polish Folk Song "Wezmę ja kontusz" (I'll take my nobleman's robe). The Badinerie (literally "jesting" in French — in other works Bach used the Italian word with the same meaning, "Scherzo") has become a show-piece for solo flautists because of its quick pace and difficulty.

Earlier version in A minor

Joshua Rifkin has argued, based on in-depth analysis of the partially autograph primary sources, that this work is based on an earlier version in A minor in which the solo flute part was scored instead for solo violin. Rifkin demonstrates that notational errors in the surviving parts can best be explained by their having been copied from a model a whole tone lower, and that this solo part would venture below the lowest pitches on the flutes Bach wrote for (the transverse flute, which Bach called flauto traverso or flute traversiere). Rifkin argues that the violin was the most likely option, noting that in writing the word "Traversiere" in the solo part, Bach seems to have fashioned the letter T out of an earlier "V", suggesting that he originally intended to write the word "violin" (the page in question can be viewed here, p. 6) Further, Rifkin notes passages that would have used the violinistic technique of bariolage. Rifkin also suggests that Bach was inspired to write the suite by a similar work by his second cousin Johann Bernhard Bach.

Flautist Steven Zohn accepts the argument of an earlier version in A minor, but suggests that the original part may have been playable on flute as well as violin.

Oboist Gonzalo X. Ruiz has argued in detail that the solo instrument in the lost original A minor version was the oboe, and he has recorded it in his own reconstruction of that putative original on a baroque oboe. His case against the violin is that: the range is "curiously limited" for that instrument, "avoiding the G string almost entirely," and that the supposed violin solo would at times be lower in pitch than the first violin part, something that is almost unheard of in dedicated violin concertos. By contrast, "the range is exactly the range of Bach's oboes"; scoring the solo oboe occasionally lower than the first violin was typical Baroque practice, as the oboe still comes through to the ear; and the "figurations are very similar to those found in many oboe works of the period."