suite
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What is a suite in music?
In music, a suite is a collection of instrumental pieces, often in the same key, that are self-contained and vary in character. During the 17th and 18th centuries, suites primarily consisted of dance movements and originated from paired dances from the 14thâ16th centuries.
By the early 18th century, the standard suite included the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue dances, in that order. Optional movements, such as gavottes, bourrées, and minuets, and an introductory movement, could also be included.
Outside of France and Germany, the order and selection of dances were less standardized. In Italy, a suite for chamber ensemble or orchestra was called a sonata da camera, or chamber sonata.
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What are some of the common parts or movements in a musical suite?
A suite in music is a collection of instrumental movements that vary in character, typically in the same key. Common movements include the allemande, a moderate tempo composition in duple or quadruple time, and the courante, an Italian dance with quick steps in triple time. The sarabande is a slow, stately dance, while the gigue is a lively dance movement in compound triple rhythm.
By the early 18th century, the standard order of these dances in a suite was allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Suites might also include additional movements such as gavottes, bourrées, minuets, or an air, as well as an introductory movement like a prelude or overture.
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How did suites become popular in the Baroque period?
During the Baroque period (approximately 1600 to 1750), the suite gained prominence as a collection of instrumental movements, primarily dance-based, in the same key. The standardization of the suite involved the grouping of dances like the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue.
The rise of the harpsichord and the evolution of musical styles contributed to the suite's popularity. Dance pairs from the Renaissance era evolved into dance suites, with optional dances like the gavotte, bourrée, and minuet sometimes included. The sonata da camera, or chamber sonata, consisting of a series of dances in the same key, became another name for the suite. Composers like J.S. Bach contributed significantly to the suite's development with works such as the Suites for Unaccompanied Cello.
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What instruments are usually used to play a suite?
The instruments commonly used to play a suite vary widely depending on the suite's historical period and style. During the Baroque era, the suite was principally made up of dance movements and could be played by various instruments. The pieces were for solo lute or keyboard, small chamber ensembles, or orchestras.
As the popularity of certain instruments rose, they were written into the suite. Salomone Rossi began specifying two violins and a large lute in his dance sets as early as 1622.
By the mid-18th century, the symphony orchestra was beginning to resemble the modern instrumental group, including strings, woodwinds (flutes, oboes, bassoons), brass (horns, trumpets), and percussion (kettledrums).
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How did the structure of suites change over time?
The structure of the suite has evolved significantly from the 17th to the 20th century.
The suite originated from paired dances in the 14thâ16th centuries. By the early 18th century, the standard suite consisted of the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. Over time, additional movements like gavottes, bourrĂ©es, and minuets were included, as well as introductory movements such as preludes and overtures. Outside of France and Germany, the order and selection of dances were less standardized.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the term suite broadened to include various sets of instrumental pieces, such as concert performances of incidental music for plays and ballets. Symphonic suites also emerged, either as extensions of 18th-century dance suites or as composite works with related programmatic content.
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Why are Bachâs suites considered important works in classical music?
Johann Sebastian Bach's suites are considered important works because he brought together principal styles, forms, and national traditions, enriching them all. Bach's suites weren't intended as dance music, but rather as a collection of instrumental movements, usually in the same key.
Bach added a prelude and a fast movement to each of his suites for cello. His Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007â1012 are noted for their rich texture and emotional resonance. After being largely forgotten, they became an essential part of the professional cellistâs repertoire in the early 21st century.
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suite, in music, a group of self-contained instrumental movements of varying character, usually in the same key. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the period of its greatest importance, the suite consisted principally of dance movements. In the 19th and 20th centuries the term also referred more generally to a variety of sets of instrumental pieces, mainly in forms smaller than those of the sonata, and included selections for concert performance of incidental music to plays (e.g., Felix Mendelssohnâs music for Shakespeareâs A Midsummer Nightâs Dream [composed 1843] and Georges Bizetâs LâArlĂ©sienne suite [composed 1872]) and ballet music (e.g., Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskyâs Nutcracker suite [1892] and Igor Stravinskyâs Firebird suites [1911, 1919, 1945]).
The suite of related dance movements originated in the paired dances of the 14thâ16th centuries, such as the pavane and galliard or the basse danse and saltarello. Often the same melodic theme would be treated in different metre and tempo in the two dances. In the 16th and 17th centuries German composers often arranged three or four dances as a unified musical entity, an early example being Johann Hermann Scheinâs Banchetto musicale (published 1617), a collection of suites of five dances for five viols.
In France the trend was to publish suites for solo lute or keyboard that were simply collections of as many as 17 or 18 pieces, almost always dances, in the same key. The French composers gradually transformed the dances into elegant, refined compositions, and the individual dance genres developed distinctive musical traits. Usually the French composers gave their pieces fanciful or evocative titles, as in the ordres (suites) of François Couperin (e.g., the allemande LâAuguste from Ordre I of his first book of harpsichord music).
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By the early 18th century four dances had become standard in the suite: the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, in that order. This basic grouping had been established in Germany in the late 17th century after Johann Jakob Froberger began to include a gigue either before or after the courante in the then common German arrangement of allemande, courante, sarabande. Frobergerâs publisher later reordered the dances in the sequence that became standard.
By the mid-18th century the use of additional movements (galanteries), such as gavottes, bourrĂ©es, and minuets, and even of an air (a lyrical movement not deriving from a dance), was common, as was a variously entitled introductory movement; e.g., prelude, overture, fantasia, sinfonia. Examples of such expansions of the basic four movements in the solo suite include J.S. Bachâs English Suites, French Suites, and Partitas (partita was a common German term for âsuiteâ).
Outside France and Germany the order and selection of dances tended to be less standardized. In Italy a suite for chamber ensemble or orchestra was commonly termed sonata da camera (chamber sonata). Particularly in Germany another type of suite also developed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. This type included dances then modern rather than the four traditional dance types, which by then, abstracted and refined, had lost their immediate dance character. It opened with an overture in the French style; hence, suites of this type were often called ouvertures. Examples of this more flexible approach include the collections Florilegia (1695, 1698) of Georg Muffat, Johann Sebastian Bachâs four Ouvertures for orchestra, and George Frideric Handelâs Water Music (1717) and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749).