Two Voices

I want to write about the wonderful contrapuntal lines in the second section of the Allemande. I’m playing the left hand alone a lot to hear that marvelous voice --- with the octave leaps and then the beautiful falling sequence. I’m struggling technically to keep my left hand in tempo, another reason to practice hands alone. I need to hear that line so clearly when I combine the two voices --- to create a dialog between the hands, rather than the right hand line dominating the conversation. The harmony is a little darker in the second section, moving to a minor key. I like that darkness – c sharp minor… “the key of laments, sighs of unsatisfied friendship and love”…providing a contrast to the “happy” key of E Major. This theme of being unsatisfied in relationship to the moods created by the tonality of the key signatures keeps returning. As I mentioned in the post about the joyful nature of the key of E Major --- there is some scholarship documenting that composers found these two related keys (E Major and c sharp minor) to suggest ultimately unfullfillment. It’s funny, because I never feel unsatisfied when I play either section of the Allemande. Well…I’m not happy with my technique --- especially when playing the trills, but that is another story.