Interactive piano piece
Learn Sinfonia No. 3 in D major, BWV 789
A sparkling D-major subject that leaps between three voices across a compact 25-bar argument. The interactive desk highlights how the three voices exchange the main motif — use voice isolation to follow the imitation as it passes from bass to inner voice to soprano and back.
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Press Play for the full piece, or choose Opening and switch to Wait for note for guided right-hand practice.
About the piece
D minor's conversation — three voices trading a single idea.
Sinfonia No. 3 in D minor opens with a subject that gets passed immediately between all three voices in close imitation, so that by measure four every part has stated the theme and the three-voice texture is fully established. This is a miniature fugal exposition compressed into a teaching piece — a preview of the larger fugal thinking Bach was developing in the Well-Tempered Clavier, which he completed just two years after the Sinfonias.
D minor's restless energy, familiar from the larger pieces Bach wrote in this key, gives the Sinfonia a sense of urgency that the C-major and C-minor pieces lack. The middle section moves through the relative major (F major) for a brief moment of brightening before the final return to D minor's tonic.
Practice path
Track the subject through all three voices in order.
Mark in your score every entrance of the main subject — there are more than you might expect. Practice each entrance separately, then play through the piece listening only for those moments, letting everything else recede. This turns the piece from a texture into a conversation you can follow.
Score basis: Generated MusicXML from Mutopia MIDI. Public domain composition; Public Domain (CC0) — Mutopia; MusicXML generated for Pianodemy. Attribution: Mutopia Project (https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=143).
MIDI source: Mutopia Project (https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=143). Public Domain (CC0) — Mutopia.
Questions
Before you practice.
Short answers for learners and for searchers deciding whether this is the right version to start with.
01What is the subject of Sinfonia No. 3?
A short, rising D-major figure that outlines the tonic triad with a rhythmic kick. It is introduced in the soprano and then answered in the other voices in a brief fugal exposition.
02How hard is Sinfonia No. 3 compared to the two-part inventions?
Harder. Even the most complex two-part inventions only require one independent voice per hand; Sinfonia No. 3, like all sinfonias, requires the right hand to manage two voices at once, which is a significant additional challenge.
How to use this V1
Keep all three voices distinct at the climactic moments.
The passages where all three voices move in similar rhythm are the hardest to balance — they tend to collapse into a single loud block. At 70% tempo, actively listen to make sure you can hear three separate lines even when they move together. Reduce the volume of whichever voice is dominating and rebuild from there.