J. S. Bach’s Invention No. 2 BWV 773 arr. clarinet duo and sounding in the key of C minor offers excellent music practice and performance opportunities. A melodic two part invention with ornaments in place that needs to be played with feeling and sensitivity. The full score appropriately transposed has appended individual clarinet parts. The realisation plays back at 52 bpm Pdf sheet music and play-a-long mp3 accompaniments are available to download. Playing the Bach Inventions as part of a duo encourages good intonation, that is, playing in tune, in duet playing. Legato playing is required when performing this invention in what is a slow tempo and melancholy movement. This is music that requires both method and determination in the way that it is approached. There are some octave transpositions in the clarinet part in the closing section to keep to the instrument’s range. Bach composed much music as a teacher with the performing and teaching context often relating to his own children. Four of his sons became important composers relevant in music history because they link the baroque era with the classical. The inventions offer excellent opportunities to instrumentalists to improve their ensemble playing skill set and develop an understanding of baroque compositional processes. The inventions are uncompromising in the demands they place on performers requiring accuracy technique and concentrated listening. In the sheet music score the ornaments are both indicated and sound in the realisation. The music editor has avoided placing ornaments in the two parts at the same time. Accompaniments are in place allowing clarinettists to participate in play-a-long ensemble activities as part of music practice routines. Clarinet 1 sounds on one side of the stereo channel and the clarinet 2 on the other. The accompaniment tracks play back at 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58 & 60 quarter note (crotchet) beats per minute. There is a two bar count in /click track at the beginning of the accompaniment tracks. Accompaniments are available with and without ornaments in place. In the keyboard video score, which clarinettists may wish to refer to on the PlentyMusic YouTube channel ornaments have been written out as they sound in the realisation representing exactly what is being played. Understand that ornaments can be interpreted differently and that performance practice is both an evolving and often reviewed subject. How ornaments are played at cadences in particular is a fascinating subject in the baroque era. Improvised and often complex cadential phrases are an aspect of performance that feature in performances. The best advice is to listen to the performances and learn to discriminate as a performer between good practice and bad practice. The Bach Inventions are generally considered to be intermediate level movements when played on a keyboard instrument. Levels when they are played on different instruments may be different. 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 key system established in Bach’s own time. Inversion, repetition, sequence, transposition, rhythmic augmentation & diminution and other processes are evident in Bach’s inventions as in 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 ensemble movements.
