Menuet series 3-1 (Sacchini)

Antonio Sacchini was a student of Francesco Durante and thus thoroughly trained in the Neapolitan manner we associate now with partimento improvisation, accompaniment, and composition. Sacchini became one of the foremost exponents of the prevailing Italian style across Europe, beginning in Rome, Florence, and Venice (from which he also traveled to Germany), but moving on to London, where he stayed for a decade, and finally to Paris, where Marie Antoinette was his patron. He died in 1786.

 A set of six menuets for string trio and two horns was published in London, presumably during his residence there (between 1772 and 1781).

No. 5. The simplest of periods, where the only change is in the phrase-ending bars (boxed).

No. 4. A classic sentence with an answering transposition in bars 3-4 and fragmentation to start the continuation phrase.

No. 3. Here Sacchini maintains the basic sentence structure but emphasizes contrast rather than developmental continuity. Note the change of dynamic in bar 3 and again in bar 5, as well as the strong contrast in the two ideas of the continuation phrase.

No. 1. Here every idea is different -- what I call a galant theme, with contrast as the expressive goal.

No. 2. Very similar to the preceding.

No. 6