Bach | French Suites, BWV 812-817 (Piano)

The French Suites, BWV 812–817, are six famous 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' (the 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 manuscripts002E

Contents:

• Suite in D minor
• Suite in C minor
• Suite in B minor
• Suite in Eb Major
• Suite in G Major
• Suite in E Major