Description
A running corrente in E major and 3/4, this Courante is the second movement of French Suite No. 6, BWV 817, and sets the suite moving after the measured Allemande. The name French Suites is not Bach's own; it became attached to the set later, and this suite keeps the traditional frame of Allemande, Courante and Sarabande at its start.
The name courante comes from the French word for running, and here the writing is an unbroken flow of quick notes. In character it is closer to the fast-flowing Italian corrente than to the French courante in 3/2 with its shifting accents. It is in binary form, each half repeated, and the range runs from C#2 to B5.
With 479 notes in about a minute it is densely written, testing the ability to keep a steady tempo while giving every note its own shape. Running figures invite rushing, so slow the playback speed, check where each beat falls, then bring the speed back gradually. Following the figures in the score view makes it easier to see where the line passes from one hand to the other.
Six keyboard suites by Bach that elegantly incorporate Baroque dance forms.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was the towering figure of German Baroque music, serving for decades as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Renowned for his mastery of counterpoint, he laid the foundations of keyboard music with works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions. This site includes minuets and polonaises from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the Inventions and Sinfonias, and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Notebook pieces are catalogued with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers, but many are by other composers - Petzold's minuets among them - or by no one known, and most of their song pages give the current view of who wrote them.
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