Noctave
The piece
In the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, this minuet directly follows the G major Minuet BWV Anh. 114: both pieces are now credited to Christian Petzold and form a pair, major then minor. The opening sets a melody falling from the high B-flat over a bass that also descends, note by note, from G to D. After the repeat sign, the music reaches B-flat major, then finds its way back to the minor.
Twelve ornaments are scattered through the score, mostly inverted mordents, which flick up to the note above before returning to the written one, a quick gesture placed on the beat. The four ordinary mordents go the other way, to the lower neighbour. Mixing them up blurs the minuet's character, so first mark on the score which ones go up and which go down. The left hand, in dotted halves at first, later comes alive with descending eighths (D–C–B-flat–A) that must stay even. In the second part, the right hand climbs in eighths up to the high B-flat; keep the wrist supple so the sound doesn't harden, and lighten the top of each climb.