The Peaceful Bach

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In this episode of Inside Music, host George Marriner Maull explores Movement II of Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major. Many people know this music as the Air on the G String due to an arrangement of this movement by German violinist August Wilhelmj in the late 1800s. In this arrangement for violin and piano, the entire melody is played on the lowest string of the violin––the G string. Today, this title might imply a somewhat strange connotation of which August Wilhelmj would have been entirely unaware! Maestro Maull stays with the original music and the original title of the movement given to it by Johann Sebastian Bach. That is, simply, Air––a song––and a profoundly beautiful one it is.