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1 results

  • 2 - Dance Types, Preludes, and Analytical Perspectives

  • Edward Klorman, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book:
    Bach: The Cello Suites
    Published online:
    02 October 2025
    Print publication:
    11 September 2025, pp 33-61

  • Summary

    J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites, like his English Suites, all follow the same basic format: prelude, allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, with various modern dances known as “galanteries” placed in the penultimate position. Bach insisted that his students study a number of suites to develop an intimate knowledge of these various genres of stylized dances. Writings by his North German contemporaries—especially Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexikon (1732) and Johann Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739)—offer some sense of how Bach may have understood the characters and styles of each dance type. Bach’s suites often exemplify elements of unity across the various movements, with musical motives or figures introduced in the prelude that recur in various ways across a suite. These elements of unity suggest the influence of a technique of musical variation discussed in Friedrich Erhardt Niedt’s Musikalische Handleitung (1706). The chapter closes with a complete analysis of Cello Suite No. 4 (BWV1010), illuminating harmony, form, motives, and possible Christian symbolism in the Prelude.