French Suites Nos. 3 & 6 BWV 814-817

Abstract

The Allemande of Suite No. 3 in B minor leads to a French Courante and a slow Sarabande, succeeded here by the less usual Anglaise, representative oi the English country dance as adapted for French court purposes. A pair of Minuets, the second a Trio framed by a repetition of the first, precedes a final Gigue. French Suite No. 4 in E flat major opens with the expected Allemance, coupled with an Italian Corrente form of Courante, a simpler and livelier version of the dance, not distinguished by the use of the Italian title, as it is in Bach's Partitas. The slow Sarabande is followed by a duple-time Gavotte, an Air and a Minuet without a central Trio section. The suite ends with the usual Gigue! the second and lower part entering in imitation of the first. Suite No. 5 in G major again has an opening Allemande and Italian Corrente, under the title Courante. The Sarabande leads to a Gavotte and to a tuneful Bourree, typical of the general texture of the French Suites, with their tendency to the melodic rather than the contrapuntal. The Bourree is followed by a Loure, a theatre dance oi some choreographic complexity, here stylized in its late Baroque instrumental form as a slower version of the Gigue, leading to a rapid final Gigue, in which the lower of the two parts enters later in imitation at the octave of the upper part, the order of entries reversed in the inverted version of the second section of the dance. French Suite No. 6 in E major in one manuscript source starts with a Prelude, found also in the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier. The suite proper opens with the expected Allemande and an Italian-style Courante or Corrente. An ornamented Sarabande is succeeded by a Gavotte and a Polish Minuet, followed in one source by the so-titled Petit Menuet. The following Bourree precedes the final Gigue, with its contrapuntal imitation and inversion.