Keyboard Suite in F major (complete) - M. Li

I am so excited to present to you a culmination of a year's worth of work, in the form of a complete keyboard suite in the style of Bach!

Overture - Allemande - Courante - Air - Scherzo & Trio - Sarabande - Bourrées - Gigue (35:14)

Suite structure. Please see the individual videos from my playlist on Youtube for comments on the separate movements.

Below I give a description of the suite.

I have treated the Suite as a vehicle to explore general principles of composing 18th-century Baroque music. Thereby, a great deal of care has been taken to select a diverse variety of metres, tempos, textures, and importantly - forms, all arranged suitably so the Suite movements display variety, balance, and symmetry. Consequently, the "aria ritornello shape", Bach's form/method of choice for composing binary dance movements, is only strictly observed in the Scherzo. We find, across the Suite, two fugues, a canon, a free aria, a chorale fantasia, an invention, and more. The degree of formality ranges across the entire spectrum too: on one end, we have the Air which is utterly free in its construction, bound only by a loose pattern and a search for the home key; on the other, the fugue of the Overture, where a small number of musical ideas - triple counterpoint, the four-bar episodic sequence, the motif said sequence exploits etc. - found in the ritornello theme, together with stretto, are ruthlessly and systematically developed. Everything else falls somewhere in-between.

The Overture is essentially a standalone movement, displaying some of the toolkit of the Suite at work. Then, at the centre of the Suite we find a Scherzo and Trio with orchestral ambitions, showcasing the dynamics and timbres of the keyboard, balancing a great variety of textures, and represents an utterly stereotypical Bachian dance movement. Surrounding the Scherzo are two slow, 4-part lyrical dances in 3/4 time: the Air and the Sarabande. They contrast each other with the former being a totally free, homophonic aria and the latter being a formal piece, strictly focussed on two themes and juxtaposing textures. Furthermore, the Suite is enclosed by the Allemande and the Gigue, both of which employ (maybe) well-known themes in different contexts. The former as a "chorale" prelude, and the latter as a full-fledged, fun, double fugue! The Courante can be seen as a natural extension of the Allemande, continuing with the same rhythmic ideas introduced in the repeats of the Allemande, eventually turning the Courante, on its own repeats, into an elaborately ornamented piece. And the Bourrées...Well, they were composed seven years ago, and revising them last year served as the inspiration for me to write an entire keyboard suite. So they are where everything started!

It goes without saying that the style is supposed to be Bachian, and a few of these movements are inspired, to varying degrees, by certain Bach pieces. All comments, suggestions, critiques are welcome, particular those concerning the style! If you spot any grammatical mistakes like part-writing errors or consecutives then please also let me know! I'm quite proud of the Suite, but it is by no means perfect. It is playable, but parts of certain movements are unnecessarily difficult, with the Overture being the worst offender. If you are interested in performing this Suite then please let me know. I'd be very happy revising these movements with playability heavily in consideration. There is also evidence of my own "style" here, for example, the diversity of forms, as discussed. Another example is my choice of textures. I like rich sounds, so my texture of choice is explicit three or four-part writing. This is in contrast to a typical Bach keyboard suite, where the dominating texture is two-part writing, sometimes with densely layered melodies!

If you have read up to here, well done and thank you! This Suite is a genuine labour of love. I hope I have made your day just a bit better with this work.

Dear @muchen_,

A monumental achievement that is! Congrats on this!

For the overture I have already commented, so won't repeat here.

Overall comment: I find this really enjoyable. The voicing, texture, ornaments are great.

I find b.18-20 of the Scherzo a little bit weird though since it becomes a perfect on the dominant of relative minor. I just find the cadence too strong. The change to clavichord in trio is nice!

I do find the bourree I a good contrast to the previous thick 3 to 4 part writings!

Using " row row row your boat" as both fugue subjects is so funny in the gigue! And the subject is easy to write to. I love this! Though I find the entry in b.141-144 quite strange though.

It definitely gives me a better day. I will for sure relisten it if I have time!

Henry

1 hour ago, muchen_ said:

I am so excited to present to you a culmination of a year's worth of work, in the form of a complete keyboard suite in the style of Bach!

Overture - Allemande - Courante - Air - Scherzo & Trio - Sarabande - Bourrées - Gigue (35:14)

Suite structure. Please see the individual videos from my playlist on Youtube for comments on the separate movements.

Below I give a description of the suite.

I have treated the Suite as a vehicle to explore general principles of composing 18th-century Baroque music. Thereby, a great deal of care has been taken to select a diverse variety of metres, tempos, textures, and importantly - forms, all arranged suitably so the Suite movements display variety, balance, and symmetry. Consequently, the "aria ritornello shape", Bach's form/method of choice for composing binary dance movements, is only strictly observed in the Scherzo. We find, across the Suite, two fugues, a canon, a free aria, a chorale fantasia, an invention, and more. The degree of formality ranges across the entire spectrum too: on one end, we have the Air which is utterly free in its construction, bound only by a loose pattern and a search for the home key; on the other, the fugue of the Overture, where a small number of musical ideas - triple counterpoint, the four-bar episodic sequence, the motif said sequence exploits etc. - found in the ritornello theme, together with stretto, are ruthlessly and systematically developed. Everything else falls somewhere in-between.

The Overture is essentially a standalone movement, displaying some of the toolkit of the Suite at work. Then, at the centre of the Suite we find a Scherzo and Trio with orchestral ambitions, showcasing the dynamics and timbres of the keyboard, balancing a great variety of textures, and represents an utterly stereotypical Bachian dance movement. Surrounding the Scherzo are two slow, 4-part lyrical dances in 3/4 time: the Air and the Sarabande. They contrast each other with the former being a totally free, homophonic aria and the latter being a formal piece, strictly focussed on two themes and juxtaposing textures. Furthermore, the Suite is enclosed by the Allemande and the Gigue, both of which employ (maybe) well-known themes in different contexts. The former as a "chorale" prelude, and the latter as a full-fledged, fun, double fugue! The Courante can be seen as a natural extension of the Allemande, continuing with the same rhythmic ideas introduced in the repeats of the Allemande, eventually turning the Courante, on its own repeats, into an elaborately ornamented piece. And the Bourrées...Well, they were composed seven years ago, and revising them last year served as the inspiration for me to write an entire keyboard suite. So they are where everything started!

It goes without saying that the style is supposed to be Bachian, and a few of these movements are inspired, to varying degrees, by certain Bach pieces. All comments, suggestions, critiques are welcome, particular those concerning the style! If you spot any grammatical mistakes like part-writing errors or consecutives then please also let me know! I'm quite proud of the Suite, but it is by no means perfect. It is playable, but parts of certain movements are unnecessarily difficult, with the Overture being the worst offender. If you are interested in performing this Suite then please let me know. I'd be very happy revising these movements with playability heavily in consideration. There is also evidence of my own "style" here, for example, the diversity of forms, as discussed. Another example is my choice of textures. I like rich sounds, so my texture of choice is explicit three or four-part writing. This is in contrast to a typical Bach keyboard suite, where the dominating texture is two-part writing, sometimes with densely layered melodies!

If you have read up to here, well done and thank you! This Suite is a genuine labour of love. I hope I have made your day just a bit better with this work.

 

PDF

• mli_keyboard_suite

This is an amazing piece of work! I really love the air and sarabande, found them to be very lyrical! I liked how you used the row your boat them for the gigue, but developed the basic melody into a full movement! Overall, it does sound very authentic to the baroque era, and is very inspiring to me since, I love baroque music and try to write in that style. I will save this video and continue ti listen to this beautiful piece of music that you have created! 🙏

I am very impressed by this opus magnum. Highly varied, stylistically coherent, and really engaging. So, take my few criticisms as more or less fine-tuning suggestions.

As you write, the choice of musical form for some dance movements is unusual for a Bachian suite, e.g. an Allemande as chorale fantasia etc., or the pairing "Scherzo - Trio", which was introduced by Joseph Haydn. Also, Bach usually inserted extra movements between Sarabande and Gigue, not between Courante and Sarabande. But it's your suite, not Bach's 😉

The Overture is marvelous, the fugato could be a bit more lively, but is overall very nice. Some passages seem rather difficult to play, e.g. large intervals between voices in the right hand, which can be remedied frequently by putting the alto voice in some instances in the left hand.

The contrast between the slow Allemande and the lively Courante could be stronger; their pulse is more similar than one would expect.

The Gigue is a perfect final movement and really joyful. Employing the Baroque device of using the opening subject in (partial) inversion in the second half gives it a very authentic touch.

Thanks for sharing your composition!

Beautiful and huge work. Surely you have explored and learned a lot writing it. I like all the parts, but the Air is touching.

Hi @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu - thank you again for the attentive listening to the whole suite! It's not an easy job sitting down and listening to 35 minutes of new music and I'm really glad you liked it!

The Bourrees I actually wrote 8 years ago back in middle school when I had only the faintest idea of music theory. I've revised them in early 2022 and this was what inspired me to write a complete keyboard suite. I like the variety in the suite here, between formal pieces with a strict form (e.g. Sarabande) and simpler pieces with a free form (e.g. the Bourrees).

On 12/31/2022 at 6:25 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Using " row row row your boat" as both fugue subjects is so funny in the gigue! And the subject is easy to write to. I love this! Though I find the entry in b.141-144 quite strange though.

This is absolutely intentional! We've all heard of Row Your Boat before, and the breaking apart of it into two separate themes almost creates a natural impulse for them to be reunited (at least it did to me when I wrote the work - "When am I going to hear the complete Row Your Boat theme in the home key?"). Subject 1 (first part of Row Your Boat) is reintroduced in mm. 115 as part of a stretto but it's in the subdominant, subject 2 comes in one bar too late, is in its relative minor, and cuts off to short. Mission unsuccessful. Then comes a hyperstretto in mm. 135, and here, the bass finally states the complete Row Your Boat theme. But halfway, the music diverges to the wrong key. Mission unsuccessful again. It's only until the last 8 bars that you hear the complete theme (without any contrapuntal tricks, but with counterthemes heard before). So if you like, it's the structural equivalent of an interrupted cadence.

53 minutes ago, muchen_ said:

thank you again for the attentive listening to the whole suite! It's not an easy job sitting down and listening to 35 minutes of new music and I'm really glad you liked it!

Actually I'm excited to hear your final product after chatting with you in the overture post! I'm sure it will be a great listening and it is!! 35 minutes of it really doesn't seem long, since it's varied with different contrast in forms, metre, texture, etc, and in each repetition you add new ornaments and touches to the repeated section.

57 minutes ago, muchen_ said:

The Bourrees I actually wrote 8 years ago back in middle school when I had only the faintest idea of music theory. I've revised them in early 2022 and this was what inspired me to write a complete keyboard suite.

It's always great to re-evaluate your old works and get some new inspirations! I did the same thing in my quintet though. Congrats on that!

1 hour ago, muchen_ said:

This is absolutely intentional! We've all heard of Row Your Boat before, and the breaking apart of it into two separate themes almost creates a natural impulse for them to be reunited (at least it did to me when I wrote the work - "When am I going to hear the complete Row Your Boat theme in the home key?"). Subject 1 (first part of Row Your Boat) is reintroduced in mm. 115 as part of a stretto but it's in the subdominant, subject 2 comes in one bar too late, is in its relative minor, and cuts off to short. Mission unsuccessful. Then comes a hyperstretto in mm. 135, and here, the bass finally states the complete Row Your Boat theme. But halfway, the music diverges to the wrong key. Mission unsuccessful again. It's only until the last 8 bars that you hear the complete theme (without any contrapuntal tricks, but with counterthemes heard before). So if you like, it's the structural equivalent of an interrupted cadence.

I absolutely love your stretto and the treatment of the two subjects which come from the song. Now I re-listen the gigue seeing this and get it. I love the reappearance of the whole theme at the end, so creative of that!