Minuet in G: A Song History

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This little G-major minuet is among the earliest pieces that many players meet at the keyboard.[1] It survives in the second Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, a manuscript dated from 1725 onward, where Bach Digital identifies Anna Magdalena herself as the copyist of this entry.[2] For many years it was credited to Johann Sebastian Bach, and it still carries the number BWV Anh. 114, which places it in the appendix of the Bach catalogue.[3]

Etching of an elegant couple dancing a minuet before a crowd of onlookers

Giacomo Leonardis, The Minuet, etching and engraving, 1765. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its subject; it has no connection to this minuet.

In a 1979 article in the Bach-Jahrbuch, the Bach scholar Hans-Joachim Schulze pointed to Christian Petzold (1677–1733), a Dresden organist who took the post at the Sophienkirche in 1703 and in 1709 became court organist and chamber composer.[3] The article's title calls the piece a "Dresden minuet" in Anna Magdalena's second notebook, and its summary says the study identifies the real composer of two well-known minuets from that book.[4] Bach Digital now lists Petzold as the composer, although at least one reference site still describes the authorship as uncertain.[2][3] Outside scholarly circles the tune is still popularly called Bach's Minuet in G.[1] It is a different piece from Beethoven's Minuet in G, the second of his Six Minuets, WoO 10.[5]

The melody reached the pop charts in 1965, when songwriters Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell recast it in common time as "A Lover's Concerto" for the New York girl group The Toys.[1] The record sold more than two million copies and was later covered by The Supremes and Sarah Vaughan, among others.[1]

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Sources

  1. WFMT: "How a Bach Minuet Got a Motown Makeover".
  2. Bach Digital: "D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 225 [2. Notenbüchlein der A. M. Bach, 1725]".
  3. Bach Cantatas Website: "Christian Petzold".
  4. Bach-Jahrbuch: "Ein „Dresdner Menuett“ im zweiten Klavierbüchlein der Anna Magdalena Bach".
  5. Presto Music: "Beethoven: Minuet in G major No. 2 from 6 Minuets, WoO 10".