Baroque orchestral work: "Air"

The "Air" is one of the most famous orchestral pieces in Baroque music. It is the 2nd movement of Suite No.3 in D Major, BWV 1068, and composed by the famous J.S. Bach.

What does all of the underlined gibberish mean? It's helpful to understand some background. Composers back in the day wrote massive amounts of music, sometimes for the royal court. These pieces were long, short, and for instrumentation of all types, and became very messy and confusing when trying to keep track which piece was which. Fast forward couple hundred years, musicologists (people who study music) began to create catalogs for famous classical composers with overwhelming number of compositions to make it easier to keep track. BWV simply refers to the specific catalog for J.S. Bach's works and was created in 1950.

Orchestral suites can be though of as an album, and the movements are like individual tracks. Often times, there will be a theme among each suite, most notably the key it is in. In this example, this Suite is predominantly in the keys of D Major and the relative minor. Sometimes a particular movement or suite will become so popular, it will be given a special name (i.e. Moonlight Sonata is famously known by the 2nd movement of a Beethoven piano sonata). But more often, it is just a numerical name, in this came Suite No. 3.

"Air" is actually no special name. It refers to aria, a song-like lyrical piece. When listening to this piece, try to imagine all the melody as being sung and resonating in a opera theater.

Enjoy!