French Suite No.6 in E major BWV 817 (1725?)

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte

Polonaise

Menuet

Bourrée

Gigue

The usual explanation for the title given – not by Bach – to the six French Suites is that it was to distinguish them from the six English Suites. That of course begs the question where the latter got their title from. In both sets of suites French names are given to dances which are of German, Italian, and Spanish origin as well as English (or Irish) and French. The fourth movement of the third French Suite is an Anglaise, and the fifth movement of the fifth English Suite is an unmistakably French-style Passepied. The major difference is that the English Suites begin with a (French-style!) Prélude, whereas the French go straight into the sequence of dances – all of them, incidentally, in binary form with each half repeated.

The present Suite in E major was written some time after the others, perhaps as late as 1725 when Bach was collecting together works of the same kind – suites without preludes, that is – for publication. Certainly, it continues the trend started in the two or three preceding suites towards the lighter textures and more melodious thematic material that would make them attractive to his pupils and the general public. The opening Allemande, for example, is in just two parts, with a tuneful bass line and an congenial exchange between the two hands. Two-part writing by no means excludes such extravagance in scoring as that of the following Courante.

The richly harmonised Sarabande offers, with its five-note spread chords, a timely textural contrast between the first two and the last five movements. Baroque convention allowed the composer to introduce two or three dances of his own choice between the Sarabande and the Gigue but Bach opted for as many as four here – including his only keyboard polonaise and his last bourrée – all of them in basically two parts. The concluding Gigue avoids the fugal writing of its predecessors in the set and contrives, still in a two-part texture but with a particularly engaging left hand, to be not only the liveliest but also one of the most attractive of them all.