Suite (music)

A suite (queen suite, sequence ') is in the music, a cycle of instrumental or orchestral pieces, played in a predetermined sequence without long breaks. In the second half of the 17th century, established next to the name Partita, in the 18th century suites were often initiated by overtures.

Suite sentence form

The exemplary form of the single set of a Baroque Suite is the suite set form. Your typical characteristics show the minuets of Bach. A suite set is in two parts; both parties end up with repeat signs. Fundamental to the form is the harmonious development: The first part of a sentence in major leads to the dominant, the second part of the dominant back to the tonic. The way back is usually extended by the cadence to an adjacent key - mainly, as in Bach, for Tonikaparallele. If the suite set in a minor key, the first part of the sentence either in the Tonikaparallele or in the fifth above the key in a minor key.

Many dances appear in a parent symmetrical three-part, the middle part is often in the relative minor or contains a variation or is characterized by a reduced instrumentation. The block designations are for example:

• Bourrée I - Bourrée II - Bourrée I
• Sarabande - Double ( the Sarabande ) - Sarabande
• Menuet - Trio - Minuet

Renaissance

Etienne du Tertre used the term for the first time in 1557 for his suyttes de Bransles that, as usual at that time, consisted of pairs of dances. The first recognizable suite 1610 Paul Peuerls Newe Padouan, Intrada, Dantz, and Galliarda appear in which the four dances the title in ten suites. The Banchetto musicale by Johann Hermann Schein ( 1617) contains twenty sequences of four different pieces of music.

Baroque

In Baroque music, the individual pieces of a suite are true generally or stylized dances and are usually in the same key. The relationship is sometimes made ​​in addition to the common basic key by common substance between the individual sets. The suite developed in the 17th century in France and was the German piano and lute music from the sequence

- The gigue appearing later than the others. Variations of this sequence were of course always possible. It became customary etc. in pairs to insert additional records as Minuet, Gavotte, Bourrée, Passepied before the final Gigue and preceded the suite an overture as the opening sentence. In this form it was called " Overtures suite" or just overture particularly among German composers popular.

Georg Philipp Telemann to have written about 1,000 orchestral suites, 200 of which have been preserved. Johann Sebastian Bach originate four Orchestral Suites, the French Suites ( an overture ), English Suites and Partitas for Harpsichord and several suites for cello, violin, lute and flute. George Frideric Handel used the form for his Water Music and Fireworks Music and wrote numerous suites for harpsichord, of which 22 have survived.

Classical

With the end of the Baroque period in 1750, the suite was out of fashion, in their place, Divertimento, Serenade, Nocturne and cassation as instrumental music with entertaining, cheerful to tanzartigem character.

Romantic

In the 19th century the term was (eg Nutcracker Suite) Suite used for extraction of instrumental records from an opera or a ballet, which - in more or less colorful pattern - was made by the composer himself or by an agent either. In the time of the operetta, the individual pieces were always completely taken over rare and associated with transitions, so that the potpourri was - a form that still lives in today's medley. From composers such as Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the term was used for a series of smaller pieces, which were connected by a common programmatic theme.

Orchestral suites as in the baroque period, such as the seven suites by Franz Lachner, were exceptions.

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