Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 (BWV 1068), first part

Johann Sebastian Bach · Level 4 (Intermediate) · Baroque · Piano

The first part, with its repeat, of the famous “Air on the G String” (c. 1730), in D major: the violins’ long melody above the walking bass. In Se7en (David Fincher, 1995), it accompanies Detective Somerset’s night-time research in the library.

▶ Play this piece with the interactive score

How to practise it

• Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
• Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
• Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
• The first note lasts more than a bar: listen to it to the end before moving on, the melody grows out of that held sound. Left hand in very even quarters, detached but not dry, like a walking double bass. The short values (thirty-seconds, bars 5 and 6) are sung ornaments: never rushed.

More pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach

• Partita 4 (BWV 828) — movement 6
• Aus meines Herzens Grunde (Chorale 1) (BWV 269)
• Two-Part Invention No. 1 in C major (BWV 772)
• Prelude No. 1 in C major, Well-Tempered Clavier I (BWV 846)
• Two-Part Invention No. 13 in A minor (BWV 784)
• Two-Part Invention No. 8 in F major (BWV 779)
• Little Prelude in F major (BWV 928)
• Two-Part Invention No. 4 in D minor (BWV 775)

Source : Arrangement Note after Note d’après l’édition de la Bach-Gesellschaft, Mutopia Project n° 1534 · Public Domain