Orchestral suites (Bach)

This genre was extremely popular in Germany during Bach's day, and he showed far less interest in it than was usual: Robin Stowell writes that "Telemann's 135 surviving examples [represent] only a fraction of those he is known to have written";[1] Christoph Graupner left 85; and Johann Friedrich Fasch left almost 100.

The two keyboard works are among the few Bach published, and he prepared the lute suite for a "Monsieur Schouster", presumably for a fee, so all three may attest to the form's popularity.

[5] The Badinerie (literally "jesting" in French – in other works Bach used the Italian word with the same meaning, scherzo) has become a showpiece for solo flautists because of its quick pace and difficulty.

[6] For many years in the 1980s and early 1990s the movement was the incidental music for ITV Schools morning programmes in the UK.

Rifkin argues that the violin was the most likely option, noting that in writing the word "Traversiere" in the solo part, Bach seems to have fashioned the letter T out of an earlier "V", suggesting that he originally intended to write the word "violin" (the page in question can be viewed here, p. 6)[9] Further, Rifkin notes passages that would have used the violinistic technique of bariolage.

Flautist Steven Zohn accepts the argument of an earlier version in A minor, but suggests that the original part may have been playable on flute as well as violin.

[1] Rifkin has argued that the lost original version was written during Bach's tenure at Köthen, did not have trumpets or timpani, and that Bach first added these parts when adapting the Ouverture movement for the choral first movement to his 1725 Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, BWV 110 ("Our mouths be full of laughter").