Air on the G String Air on the G String "Air on the G String" is August Wilhelmj's arrangement of the second movement in Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068. The arrangement differs from the original in that the part of the first violins is transposed down so that it can be played entirely on a violin's lowest string, "i.e.", the G string. It is played by a single violin (instead of by the first violins as a group). Bach's third Orchestral Suite in D major, composed in the first half of the 18th century, has an "Air" as
Violin all the orchestral strings (violin, viola, cello) except the double bass, which is tuned in perfect fourths. Each subsequent note is stopped at a pitch the player perceives as the most harmonious, "when unaccompanied, [a violinist] does not play consistently in either the tempered or the natural [just] scale, but tends on the whole to conform with the Pythagorean scale." When violinists are playing in a string quartet or a string orchestra, the strings typically "sweeten" their tuning to suit the key they are playing in. When playing with an instrument tuned to equal temperament, such as a piano, skilled