I have been creating a series of beat-driven remixes of canonical classical works. I have mostly done this for my own enjoyment, because I like hearing the pieces with some groove to them. But I also sense that there might be pedagogical applications for this method as well. I finally found a good example: the rhythm in the bariolage passage from measures 17-28 of the prelude to Bach’s violin partita in E major. Listen to it at 0:24 in Viktoria Mullova’s recording, it’s the purple part:
Something strange happens whenever I listen to this passage: after the second measure, I start hearing the rhythm wrong. I bet you do too!
The passage is made of four-note groups. The lowest note in each group jumps out at you as being the most prominent one. They are in a different register from the others, and they define the harmony. You start hearing these standout notes as being accented, even if the performer isn’t accenting them. The convention in classical music is to put accented notes on strong beats. So you probably start hearing the lowest notes in each group as “downbeats,” and your sense of the meter reorients accordingly. But this is wrong! Each low note falls on the last sixteenth note of each grouping, not the first. You aren’t expecting such hip syncopation in 18th century music, so when the passage ends you get all confused about where the beat is.
Here’s the score, with the “accented” notes in red. If you are anything like me, you will quickly fall into a groove of hearing the red notes as downbeats beats, so the last note will feel strangely misplaced.