The "
Air on the G String" is a musical piece for string and piano, arranged by
August WilhelmjAugust Wilhelmj was a German violinist.He has become famous for his late nineteenth century arrangement of the second movement of J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 for the violin and piano, known as Air on the G String.Among his pupils was American violinist Nahan Franko....
from the
AirAir , a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions.-English lute ayres:...
of
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D majorThe four Orchestral Suites or Ouvertures BWV 1066–1069 are a set of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, probably composed between 1725 and 1739 in Leipzig...
,
BWVThe Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number now is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
1068. The piece is usually played slowly and freely, and features an intertwining harmony and melody.
The original orchestral suite was written by Bach for his patron
Prince Leopold of AnhaltLeopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen was a German prince member of the House of Ascania and ruler of the Principality of Anhalt-Köthen...
sometime between the years 1717 and 1723.
The title comes from violinist Wilhelmj's late 19th century arrangement of the piece for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
and
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
.
The "
Air on the G String" is a musical piece for string and piano, arranged by
August WilhelmjAugust Wilhelmj was a German violinist.He has become famous for his late nineteenth century arrangement of the second movement of J. S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 for the violin and piano, known as Air on the G String.Among his pupils was American violinist Nahan Franko....
from the
AirAir , a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions.-English lute ayres:...
of
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D majorThe four Orchestral Suites or Ouvertures BWV 1066–1069 are a set of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, probably composed between 1725 and 1739 in Leipzig...
,
BWVThe Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number now is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
1068. The piece is usually played slowly and freely, and features an intertwining harmony and melody.
History
The original orchestral suite was written by Bach for his patron
Prince Leopold of AnhaltLeopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen was a German prince member of the House of Ascania and ruler of the Principality of Anhalt-Köthen...
sometime between the years 1717 and 1723.
The title comes from violinist Wilhelmj's late 19th century arrangement of the piece for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
and
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. By transposing the
keyIn music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a certain key, such as in the key of C or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the key of...
of the piece from its original
D majorD major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
to
C majorC major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps....
and transposing the melody down an
octaveIn music, an octave , is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon which has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music," the use of which is "common in most musical systems." It may be derived from the...
, Wilhelmj was able to play the piece on only one
stringA string is the vibrating element that is the source of vibration in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. They are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may freely vibrate...
of his violin, the G string.
It was sampled for the soundtrack of the film Yellow Submarine. It was conducted by George Martin and released as Sea Of Monsters. In the movie Se7en, Morgan Freeman is doing research in a library late at night and comments towards the nightwatchmen that they should take in some of the culture of the place, instead of playing poker all night. As an answer, one of the night guards turns on the radio to this musical piece, which becomes the score for the scene where Morgan Freeman finds lots of plot tells (whilst the guards still play poker...)
Audio sample
External links
(at the bottom)
- Musical score and MIDI file at the Mutopia Project
The Mutopia project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...
, Orchestral arrangement
- Musical score and MIDI file at the Mutopia Project
The Mutopia project is a volunteer-run effort to create a library of free content sheet music, in a way similar to Project Gutenberg's library of public domain books.The music is reproduced from old scores that are out of copyright...
, Trombone Quartet arrangement
Video clips
- Air on the G String performance by the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber is one of the world's most renowned solo cellists.-Early life:The British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...
- Usage in a 1980s TV advert
"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet" is one of the most famous British advertising campaigns for a tobacco product.-History:"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet" was a long-running campaign for Hamlet Cigars, lasting on television until all tobacco advertising on television was banned in the UK in...
for HamletHamlet are a well known brand of cigar produced by Japan Tobacco. They are available in several varieties, miniatures and also a regular length. They are regularly referred to as the 'mild cigar' in their advertising....
Audio clips
- Performance in arrangement for flute and orchestra by the Gardner Chamber Orchestra with soloist Paula Robison from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Fenway Court is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and near the Back Bay Fens. The museum has a collection of over 2,500 works of European, Asian and American art,...
in MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
format