Inventions and Sinfonias (J. S. Bach)
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Johann Sebastian Bach's Two Part Inventions (BWV 772-801) is a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions, consisting of fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias. Almost universally known among piano and harpsichord students as the Two and Three Part Inventions, they were originally written by Bach as exercises for the musical education of his students.
It was given a title by Bach: "A faithful Guide, whereby admirers of the harpsichord are shown a plain Method of learning not only to play clean in two Parts, but likewise in further Progress to manage three obbligato Parts well and correctly, and at the same time not merely how to get good Inventions, but also how to develop the same well; but above all, to obtain a cantabile Style of playing, and together with this to get a strong Foretaste of Composition."
The two groups of pieces are both arranged in order of ascending key, each group covering fifteen major and minor keys. The sequence of keys is
- C major
- C minor
- D major
- D minor
- E-flat major
- E major
- E minor
- F major
- F minor
- G major
- G minor
- A major
- A minor
- B-flat major
- B minor
The inventions were composed in Cöthen; the sinfonias, on the other hand, were probably not finished until the beginning of the Leipzig period.
[edit] Trivia
- A snippet of Two-Part Invention No.8 played on the trumpet can be heard amongst other famous tunes during the fade-out of the Beatles song "All You Need is Love".
- Two-Part Invention No.13 in A minor was used by metal band Children of Bodom, in the intro for their song Red Light In My Eyes Part I.
- Two-Part Invention No.13 was also used by Commodore Business Machines, Inc. as the theme for their Commodore 64 computer advertising programme.
- Two-Part Invention No.13 was also used by Takayuki Ishikawa, as a remix of the song named "No.13", for the video game "beatmania IIDX 10th style".
