Allemande of Suite 1 in G major, BWV 1007
Well, I am not moving away from the prelude I’ve been working on by any means, but if I am going to work this 1st cello suite up to performance level that means the whole thing. I started working on the Allemande a few days ago, I haven’t decided yet if it is more or less difficult that the prelude.
The word allemande is actually describing an instrumental dance form. It was very popular in the Baroque period (the time of Bach). Allemande originated in the 16th century in Germany (go figure, Bach was from Germany) and originally were used as the first movement of a suite, but after a while it became “popular” to have a prelude preceding the allemande. When dancing an allemande people would form two lines facing each other, their partner directly across from them, extended hands and danced back and forth across the room like this, usually in three steps, followed by a balance on one foot (I imagine something akin to line dancing, only more sophisticated).
So here is Rostropovich Playing the Allemande:
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[...] while ago I talked about the second movement, the Allemande, so you might have gathered that Courante is not some name Bach came up with whilst [...]