Christian Petzold (1677–1733)
An organist in Dresden, Christian Petzold is the real author of the famous Minuets in G major and G minor from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook, long attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Christian Petzold (sometimes spelled Pezold) was organist of the Sophienkirche in Dresden and a musician at the Saxon court. He was well regarded as an organist and harpsichordist in his lifetime, but very little of his music has survived.
His name is famous today thanks to two little pieces: the Minuet in G major (BWV Anh. 114) and the Minuet in G minor (BWV Anh. 115). They appear in the second Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, begun in 1725, a family book into which pieces for playing at home were copied. Because they carry no composer’s name there, they were long believed to be by Bach himself.
In the 1970s, musicologists showed that both minuets came from a harpsichord suite by Petzold. That is why Bach’s catalogue places them in the “Anhang” (appendix), reserved for doubtful works or works by other composers.
These minuets are one of almost every piano student’s first encounters with Baroque music: a singing right-hand melody, a bass that answers it, and a two-part form with repeats.
Piano sheet music (1)
- Minuet in G major (BWV Anh. 114) · level 3
Guitar sheet music (1)
- Minuet in G (BWV Anh. 114) · level 3