French Suite no. 5 in G, BWV 816 (Bach)
Movements
i Allemande, ii Courante, iii Sarabande, iv Gavotte, v Bourrée, vi Loure, vii Gigue
Notes
The French Suites, BWV 812–817, are six suites which Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for the clavier (harpsichord or clavichord) between the years of 1722 and 1725.
The suites were later given the name ‘French’ (first recorded usage by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg in 1762). The name was popularised by Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who wrote in his 1802 biography of Bach, “One usually calls them French Suites because they are written in the French manner.” This claim, however, is inaccurate: like Bach’s other suites, they follow a largely Italian convention. There is no surviving definitive manuscript of these suites, and ornamentation varies both in type and in degree across manuscripts.
The first few bars of suite no.5 were written in 1722 for Bach’s second wife, but it was not completed until 1723. The Gigue, as often, is in fugal style, in binary form. The voices enter in descending order (Soprano-Alto-Bass), while in the second half of the piece the voices not only enter in opposite order but also an inversion of the 1st subject.
