Guest
This 'Suite in G minor' is a piece from Bach’s younger years. Bach was already an excellent master of the basic Baroque composition technique – see Korneel Bernolet’s explanation of partimento in the accompanying video! – although he had yet to achieve the great heights of his later suites. Here we see a composer who is still searching for his voice and carefully exploring the boundaries of his musical ambition, undoubtedly inspired by the Italian and French music to which he had been introduced around 1700, both on paper and live (performed by the French court orchestra in Celle). The first movement of this Suite is an ouverture modelled on those of Lully and D’Anglebert, with a slow, stately introduction followed by a fugue. It all proceeds nicely by the book, until in a few short bars Bach modulates brusquely via a steep harmonic ascent to G-flat minor – dangerously close to the main key of G. The highlight of the suite is the Aria, which is still completely in line with the seventeenth-
