Bourrée : from the Third suite for 'cello

Suite

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750
Suite
Form
Score
First page of Bourrée : from the Third suite for 'cello

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Themes & character
From the cello suites·Piano arrangement·Widely borrowed melody·Baroque dance

At a glance

Form
Suite

About the piece

A piano arrangement of the Bourree from Bach's third cello suite, one of the most widely borrowed melodies in his output. Jethro Tull turned it into a rock instrumental in 1969, and it has been arranged for practically every instrument. The six cello suites were themselves largely unknown until the young Pablo Casals found a copy in a Barcelona shop in the 1890s and spent a dozen years studying them before performing any in public.

The composer

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685–1750

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He is known for his mastery of counterpoint, as heard in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn precipitated the Bach Revival with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Ever since, Bach has been acclaimed as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

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