English Suites Nos.1-6 : Sophie Yates(Cemb)(2CD)

There is no surviving autograph manuscript of Bachs English Suites, and for such a set of magnificent pieces, an important and well-loved part of the baroque keyboard canon, surprisingly little is known about its history. What we do know is that the suites are amongst Bachs earlier works probably written in the second decade of the eighteenth century and that the appellation English was not given to them until the 1750s. A handwritten copy owned by Bachs youngest son, Johann Christian, bore the following inscription on the title page of the first suite: Fait pour les Anglois, and this seems to have given rise to the nickname that has identified them ever since. Another, if slightly more oblique, connection to Englishness appears through the French composer Charles Dieupart (c. 1667 c. 1740), who had settled in London and worked at the Drury Lane Theatre. J.S. Bach copied out and studied Dieuparts Six Suittes de Clavessin of 1701, the form of which he then replicated in his English Suites. Each suite begins with a substantial movement (called Ouverture in Dieuparts case) which is followed by the traditional allemande, courante, sarabande, galanteries and a final gigue. The works are presented here by Sophie Yates.