Bach Choir of Bethlehem

Bach wrote six suites which bear the appellation "French Suite." Other suites (in a minor and E-flat major) are sometimes published along with the six "official" French Suites, but they do not follow the conventional arrangement of movements.

Bach’s Clavierbüchlein of 1722 (written for his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach) includes early drafts of the suites, though they were not collected as a group until sometime later. Numbers 4 (E-flat major) and 6 (E major) exist in other versions where a prelude is included, which implies that at some time in the 1720s, Bach did not have a particular arrangement of movements established. Nonetheless, in their final form, each of the six French Suites observes the following basic order of movements:

Movement	Tempo	Meter	Special traits
Allemande	Moderate tempo	Duple (or quadruple) meter	Short upbeat, frequent running figures
Courante (or the Italian corrente)	Moderate	Triple (traditionally, 3/2 or 6/4) [3/4, if Italian style]	Free contrapuntal texture; melody sometimes shifts from upper voice to lower voice [continuous running figures, if Italian style]
Sarabande	Slow	Triple meter	Dignified style; usually lacks an upbeat; often with accent (or lengthen pitch) on the second beat, sometimes on the third beat; weak cadences
Gavotte	Moderate	4/4	Upbeat of two quarter notes; phrases thus end in the middle of a measure
Bourreé	Quick	Duple	Single upbeat
Gigue	Quick	Compound duple meter (6/8 or 6/4)	Wide intervals, sometimes dotted rhythms; fugal writing; subject often inverted in 2^nd section

Each of these movements is written as a simple binary form, with two sections, both of which are repeated. In each case, the first section moves from tonic (E major) to dominant (B major), and the second section eventually returns to the tonic, sometimes after brief visits to other keys along the way.

Bach’s French Suite No. 6 in E major follows the arrangement of movements above, with one exception, which was so commonplace in 17^th and 18^th century suites, it was hardly an exception: it was not uncommon for an additional movement to be inserted between the gavotte and bourrée; Bach, however, inserts two additional movements, a polonaise and a minuet. Bach uses minuets (or menuets) in several French suites, though this is the only appearance of a polonaise. What is perhaps most striking about the addition of both movements here is that they are both moderate-tempo movements in 3/4 time; while the two are not similar in terms of musical content, back-to-back they do not provide the same kind of contrast we normally get moving from one movement to the next in the suites.

The polonaise is better known to keyboardists as a favorite genre of Chopin; the polonaise here by Bach is among the earliest known movements of that title. Similar to Chopin’s works, Bach’s polonaise is a triple meter movement, lacking in upbeats to phrases, with the cadence arriving not on the downbeat, but on the second beat.

The other movement added here is a minuet. Minuets were commonplace in Bach’s day; anyone who has studied at least a little piano has likely learned a few simple ones by Bach, from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. The minuet was a moderate tempo, triple meter, courtly dance. Bach’s minuet in the French Suite No. 6 in E major meets all these criteria. It is graceful, comprised of brief two-measure phrases. In the first section, each phrase is parallel in design: a series of six unaccompanied eighth notes is followed by three quarter notes, arranging as neighbor tones. (The pattern stops at the cadence.)

These two "extra" movements are the most forward-looking in the suite. In their basic homophonic style, clear soprano melody, periodic phrasing, and simply elegance, they anticipate the gallant style, which we associate not with J.S. Bach, but with his sons.

The courante (second movement) uses the French title, but actually follows an Italian style (some editions even print the word "corrente" instead of courante). This is seen in the almost continuous eighth-note runs through the texture:

Little and Jenne (Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach) identify this courante as a type III-2-2-3/4 courante —the second most popular courante type in the works of Bach. This type of courante is set in _ time; the constant sixteenths force a slightly slower tempo than in other courantes, which allow the listener to feel each quarter-note beat (in faster courantes, the entire measure is perceived as a beat). Phrases are grouped into 12 beats (4 measures), which is in fact what we can see in the example above. Because of the activity of the moving lines, there is little addition ornamentation.

The gavotte is one of my favorites. It is essentially homophonic in texture, with occasional parallel moving lines in the middle voice, or walking basslines to enliven the texture. The top line clearly dominates–again, anticipating the gallant music of the next generation of Bachs.

The gigue is representative of one of three types of Bach gigues, the kind identified by Little and Jenne as a "giga II":

Although every movement in this suite is in E major, there is plenty of invention to keep the listeners–or performers–interested.