The English Suites, BWV 806–811, refer to a set of six suites written by the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach for harpsichord and generally thought to be the earliest of Bach's 18 suites for keyboard, the others being the 6 French Suites, BWV 812-817 and the 6 Partitas, BWV 825-830.
History
These six suites for keyboard are thought to be the earliest set that Bach composed. Originally, their date of composition was thought to have been between 1718 and 1720, but more recent research suggests that the composition was likely earlier, around 1715, while the composer was living in Weimar.[citation needed].
Bach's English Suites display less affinity with Baroque English keyboard style than the French Suites do to French Baroque keyboard style; the name "English" is thought to date back to a claim made by the nineteenth-century Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel that these works might have been composed for an English nobleman. No evidence has emerged to substantiate this claim.[citation needed]
Surface characteristics of the English Suites strongly resemble those of Bach's French Suites and Partitas, particularly in the sequential dance-movement structural organization and treatment of ornamentation. These suites resemble also the Baroque French keyboard suite typified by the generation of composers including Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, and the dance-suite tradition of French lutenists that preceded it.
In the English Suites especially, Bach's affinity with French lute music is demonstrated by his inclusion of a prelude for each suite, departing from an earlier tradition of German derivations of French suite (those of Johann Jakob Froberger and Georg Boehm are examples), which saw a relatively strict progression of the dance movements (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue) and which did not typically feature a Prelude. Unlike the preludes of French lute or keyboard style, however, Bach's preludes in the English Suites are composed in strict meter.
The six English Suites
- 1st suite in A major, BWV 806
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante I, Courante II, Sarabande, Bourrée I, Bourrée II, Gigue
- 2nd suite in a minor, BWV 807
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Bourrée I, Bourrée II, Gigue
- 3rd suite in g minor, BWV 808
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte I, Gavotte II, Gigue
- 4th suite in F major, BWV 809
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet I, Menuet II, Gigue
- 5th suite in e minor, BWV 810
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Passepied I, Passepied II, Gigue
- 6th suite in d minor, BWV 811
- Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte I, Gavotte II, Gigue
Note that the key sequence follows the same series of notes as the chorale 'Jesu, meine Freude'; this is unlikely to be accidental.
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