Bach: Orchestral Suites Nos. 1-4

Featuring

Roy Goodman
Rachel Brown
Pavlo Beznosiuk
Paul Nicholson
Brandenburg Consort
Johann Sebastian Bach

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Composition History

Some movements on this recording were originally composed as sinfonias (preludes) for vocal cantatas, such as BWV209/i from an Italian-texted secular cantata.

Composer Biography

Around 1730-32, Bach and his assistants copied other overture-suites by his relatives and others, likely for performances at the student concert-club or Collegium Musicum, which Bach directed.

Composition History

Early versions of Suites 3 and 4 (BWV1068 and 1069) likely existed without trumpets and timpani, but these versions have been lost.

Composition History

Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV1067, is likely Bach's latest preserved example of this genre, with stylistic and historical evidence suggesting it was composed in the 1730s or later.

Composition History

Johann Sebastian Bach's four preserved Orchestral Ouvertüren (Suites) were apparently completed in Leipzig between 1723/4 and 1739.

Critical Reception

Around 1960, the attribution of Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV1066, to Bach was doubted by scholars like Karl Geiringer, but these doubts have since been resolved.

Compositional Technique

The main theme of the two gavottes in Suite No. 1 strongly resembles Bach's four-voice sacred song 'Dir, dir, Jehovah, will ich singen,' which he wrote into his wife Anna Magdalena's music album.