The Dance Suites of J.S. 
Bach
By Peter Friesen
J.S. Bach is accepted to be the master of the Baroque dance suite. It was he 
who codified a general form for the suite, standardizing which movements were 
to be played and in what order. Yet he did not invent the idea of grouping 
dances together to form a collection; dances had first begun to be paired 
together in the 14th century, and composers continued to do likewise in the 
centuries between the first dance "suites" for lute and the late Baroque suites 
of J.S. Bach. This page will explain the general form developed by Bach, 
and will specifically discuss the forms of his various dance suites –his 
French and English Suites, and his Partitas.
Standardized form of German Late 
Baroque Suite
1.Prelude / other introductory movement 
2.Allemande 
3.Courante 
4.Sarabande 
5.Optional movements: gavotte, bouree, passepied, 
minuet,
etc. 
6.Gigue
Bach played around with this general structure 
extensively. Some suites had no prelude before the 
Allemande, and some had many movements between 
the Sarabande and Gigue, while others had none. The 
one thing that remains consistent throughout the form of 
Bach's dance suites is the presence of the Allemande, 
Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, and in that order. 
Bach's dance movements were almost always in binary 
form (an A section, repeated, followed by a B section, 
repeated), beginning in tonic, diverging into another key 
area, then ending back in tonic. Each of his 18 suites (6 
French, 6 English and 6 Partitas) remained in one key 
throughout, providing a sense of unity to the suite as a 
whole.
   
Bach's French Suites
Bach's French Suites are known by some as the smaller 
suites, since the movements themselves tend to be 
shorter. Of the six that he wrote, not one contains a 
movement before the Allemande, yet most contain 
multiple movements between the Sarabande and the 
Gigue. In the E Major suite, for example, there are 
actually four movements inserted before the Gigue.
There is no significance of the keys in which Bach's 
dance suites were composed: for example, the French 
Suites are in D minor, C minor, B minor, E-flat, G, and 
E. They are not related to one another by key signature, 
as in the Well-Tempered Clavier, rather, they are grouped 
together simply because of style and form.

Taken from http://www.ptloma.edu/music/MUH/baroque/bach_suites/bach_suites.htm