Noctave
The piece
Long presented as "Bach's Minuet", this piece from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (1725) is now credited to Christian Petzold, an organist in Dresden. It forms a pair with the G minor minuet by the same composer that follows it in the notebook. Its melody even found its way into pop music: "A Lover's Concerto", recorded in 1965 by the American group The Toys.
The two hands answer each other from the first bar: the right hand starts on D, drops to G and climbs back in eighths, while the left hand sets down a G chord before tracing its own line in dotted halves. The score holds twelve ornaments, mostly mordents: the written note, its lower neighbour, then back, very quickly and on the beat. Learn the minuet without them first, then add them one at a time, along with the two grace notes. Keep the eighths smooth and even, and slightly separate the repeated quarter-note Gs that close the first phrases, so the three beats of the dance stay clear.