J.S.Bach’s Invention 4 BWV 775 arr. classical guitar duo with both notated & TAB scores available as pdf downloads from the PlentyMusic website. In the key of D minor this is an appealing work featuring an opening motif or melodic shape that combines a scale shape with the interval of a falling diminished seventh. The realisation plays back at 48 dotted quarter note or dotted crotchet beats to the minute. The time signature for this movement is 3/8 and the music editor suggests approaching playing the movement with a one in a bar feel or pulse rather than trying to count in eighth notes or quavers. The long trills bar 19 and bar 29 need to be played rhythmically and with control. There is some debate as to the notes to be played in the trill commencing in bar 29. The music editor suggests a written F natural but many alternate a F# with the E. The ornaments can always be omitted particularly in the early stages of learning the movement. Many guitarists edit the music score in how they play the ornaments finding it difficult to sustain the hammer technique for so long. Find a solution but do ensure that both parts and instruments are imitating each other. The voicing in this arrangement with the guitar 1 sounding an octave lower than written means that the contrapuntal lines are an octave closer together than in the original piano version. In the video score, which guitar players may wish to refer to on the PlentyMusic YouTube channel ornaments have been written out as they sound in the realisation to represent exactly what is being played. Accompaniments are in place allowing classical guitar duo players to participate in an ensemble activity as part of practice routines. Classical Guitar 1 sounds on one side of the stereo channel and Classical Guitar 2 on the other. The accompaniment tracks play back at 39, 42, 45, 48, 51 and for the brave 54 quarter note (crotchet) beats per minute. Accompaniment backing tracks are recorded with a dry acoustic to encourage accuracy in playing. There is a four bar count in /click track for each of the accompaniment tracks. This is an invention where it is interesting to observe the different approaches to playing the movement particularly with regard to tempo and articulation. The Inventions are always worth revisiting and the collection should be understood to be one that benefits from this. Valuable time can be spent on streaming media listening to and perhaps watching different approaches that players have when performing this movement. Whilst there is considerable contrast to the tempo that the invention is played remember that movements cannot be played quickly until they be played slowly! The inventions offer excellent opportunities to improve ensemble playing in a duo context. Individual guitar parts are also appended to the full scores available as a pdf download from the PlentyMusic website. The Bach Inventions are considered to be intermediate level movements. The key journey that features in this movement embraces the closely related keys of the relative major, sub-dominant and the V7 – VI progression bars 48 - 49 further adds to the harmonic journey. Imitation, inversion and sequence are all in evidence as compositional processes. The principle behind J. S. Bach’s two part inventions is to take a musical idea or motive and then process it following the rules of good contrapuntal writing using the compositional processes of the baroque and at the same time referencing the closely related keys in the journey. Inversion, repetition, sequence, transposition, rhythmic augmentation/diminution amongst processes are evident in Bach’s inventions as most other music of the baroque period. J. S. Bach composed 15 Inventions in a collection dating from 1723 intended to introduce keyboard players to composition techniques of the baroque. They are excellent pieces for developing a sound and secure playing technique. This is a revision and update of a previous score posted on the website.
