The text of BWV770 concerns the awakening of a sinner’s guilty conscience, and the Christian hope of trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation. It is given in ten parts (‘Partitas’), the first is the chorale. Partita I, the chorale, projects real gravitas through its texture and rhythmic animation. Partita II is set in a harpsichord texture, with a walking bass and a simple ornamented right hand. Partita III develops this with right-hand semiquavers, in the style of a violin obligato. Partita IV changes the texture to that of broken chords, with striking turns of harmony and melody and the chorale soaring over the top. Partita V features running semiquavers in the left hand below the chorale, and Partita VI a more virtuosic violinistic right hand, with bigger leaps and broken chords. Partita VII is marked by a change of metre, before striking right-hand figurations in demisemiquavers in Partita VIII. The final two partitas are longer and weightier. Partita IX is in a triple-time, with charming echo effects, and Partita X an ‘Allegro’, also with echo effects that perhaps reference the French Dialogue tradition, as well as speed and metre changes, and some challenging shifts of register on the keyboards.

from notes by George Parsons © 2017