A Deep Breath of Bach's Air on the G String
The Backstory
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068: II. Air
I'm Johann Sebastian Bach, and this is the backstory of the Air on the G String. You'll discover how a calm movement for strings, which I tucked into one of my orchestral suites, came to carry a name I never gave it, and that small mystery makes the melody even more touching. If you want to recognize a piece the moment it starts, test yourself in the Trainer , where my fellow composers and I also teach it here.
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Just One Piece of the Puzzle
People often treat the Air as if it were a little song standing alone, but I wrote it as one movement of my Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major. The suite has five movements: an Ouverture, the Air, a pair of Gavottes, a Bourrée and a Gigue. Most of the others are busy, bright and made for dancing. The Air is the one place where everyone sits down and takes a breath.The Missing Birth Certificate
If you ask me exactly when and where I composed this suite, I have to admit that nobody knows. The oldest surviving source is a set of parts from around 1730, partly in my own handwriting, so I can only say the suite existed by then at the latest. Some people guess it dates from my years in Weimar or Köthen, and no date has survived. I was born in Eisenach in 1685 and I was far too busy to think about future historians.A Man With Too Many Jobs
From 1717 to 1723 I was Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Köthen, which meant writing music for his court. In 1723 I moved to Leipzig as Thomaskantor, where I directed the music at four Lutheran churches and the St. Thomas School. With a schedule like that, I rarely stopped to explain who a piece was for. That is why nobody can say whether anyone commissioned the Air, because no commission is documented.Latecomers With Trumpets
The suite did not stay as it began, because around 1730 I apparently added oboes, trumpets and timpani to it. That made the Ouverture and the dance movements loud and festive, like a party that has just been handed a drum. The Air stayed with the strings and continuo alone, and I think that is exactly why it feels so private. After all that brightness, a quiet room is a welcome thing to walk into.A Nickname I Never Heard
I never called this piece the Air on the G String, and I never imagined anyone would. The title appeared in 1871, more than a century after my death, when August Wilhelmj, a German violinist who lived from 1845 to 1908, arranged it for violin and piano. His version caught on so well that the nickname stuck to my music like a hat that fits someone else. Plenty of people today know the nickname and have no idea that the piece belongs to a suite.The Famous Complaint
Not everyone applauded Wilhelmj's arrangement, and the great violinist Joseph Joachim was especially unimpressed. He called it "a shameless falsification of a work by Bach", which is a sharp thing to say about anybody's homework. I understand his feelings, since the music had been moved out of the key I chose and into a different sound. Still, I can't be too stern with a man whose arrangement got so many people listening.Back to D Major, Please
Another voice joined the discussion in Donald Tovey, who wrote that at his concerts the Air would be heard as I wrote it. That meant in its original D major, with no changes of key. I appreciate that kind of loyalty, even though I'm sure the audience would have enjoyed either version. The same melody sounds a little brighter in D major, and a little darker and warmer when it is lowered to C.The Promenade Regular
The Wilhelmj arrangement became a favorite in London, where Henry Wood began programming it at the Proms in 1905. He kept putting it on regularly for about three decades. That is a long run for a slow piece in a hall where people are often standing up. I take it as proof that a calm melody can hold a crowd as well as a loud one.Off to the Movies
In time the Air found its way into films, and one of them is The Spy Who Loved Me from 1977. It also turns up in Se7en from 1995, a very different film that uses the music in a very different mood. I find it remarkable that the same few minutes can feel peaceful in one place and unsettling in another. Music written for a handful of strings has apparently learned to act.A Pale Shade of Me
My favorite surprise is that in 1967 the song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum borrowed a bar or two of the Air. So a few notes from my suite ended up on the radio next to guitars and drums. I never expected that, but I like it, because it means the music still belongs to people who never think about composers. A melody that can wander that far from home and still be recognized has done its job.---
So, did you enjoy learning about the backstory of Air on the G String? I hope it was as pleasant to read as the piece is to hear. When I look back at it, I find it a little remarkable that a movement from my Orchestral Suite No. 3, with no known commission and no known date of birth, found its way into so many lives. The story goes that I simply wrote a calm movement for strings, and the rest was left to the listeners. I like that, because the music still does what it did at the start: it slows everything down and lets you breathe. There is still a lot more to explore about the Air. You could follow it into the films where it turns up, such as The Spy Who Loved Me and Se7en. You could also find out how a bar or two of it ended up in the 1967 song "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum. And there is the argument about Wilhelmj's arrangement, which the violinist Joseph Joachim called "a shameless falsification of a work by Bach". If any of that makes you curious, please click on the links below and keep exploring. Then listen to the Air once more, perhaps in its original D major with strings alone, and see what you notice this time.