SUITE (Suite de pieces; Ordre; Partita), in music, a group of dance tunes in melodic forms (see SONATA FORMS) . It consists essentially of four principal movements with the insertion of one or more lighter movements between the third and the last.
The first movement is the allemande, in slow common • time and rich flowing rhythm, beginning with one or three short notes before the first full bar.
The second movement is the courante, of which there are two kinds. The French courante begins with one or three notes before the main beat, and is in a triple time (4) which, invariably at the cadences and sometimes elsewhere, drops into a crossing triple rhythm of twice the pace (1). In homage to Couperin, Bach often uses the French courante, but he is happier with the Italian type of corrente, a brilliant continuously running piece in quick triple time (i or i).
The sarabande is a slow movement in triple time beginning on the full bar, and with at least a tendency to the rhythm name would suggest. It sometimes precedes the sarabande.
The suite concludes with a gigue, in the finest examples of which the melodic binary form is combined with a light fugue style. The gigue is generally in some triplet rhythm, e.g., 11, ; but examples in a graver style may be found in slow square time with dotted rhythms, as in Bach's first French suite and the sixth Partita of the Klavieriibung. In Couperin's first volume of Ordres, the gigue is followed by an enormous number of pieces which cannot have been intended to be all played on the same occasion, though they were all in the same key.
Suites on a large scale begin with a prelude in some larger form. Bach's French Suites have no preludes ; his English Suites all have a great first movement which, except in the first suite, is in full da capo concerto form. His Partitas cover a wider range both in their preludes and their other contents. Some large suites
have finales after the gigue, the great chaconne for violin solo being the finale of a partita (see VARIATIONS).
of which Handel's aria Lascia ch'io pianga is a familiar example. Bach's sarabandes are among the most simply eloquent and char acteristic of his smaller compositions.
Then come the galanteries, from one to three in number. These are the only suite-movements (except some of Couperin's cou rantes) which can have an alternative section and a da capo. The commonest galanteries are : (I) the minuet, often with a second minuet which is called "trio" only when it is in real three-part writing; it is a little faster than the stately minuet in Mozart's Den Giovanni, and it always begins on the full bar. (2) The gavotte, a lively dance in a not too rapid ally breve time; the gavotte always begins on the half-bar. A second alternating gavotte is frequently founded on a pedal or drone-bass, and is then called musette. (3) The bourree, which is not unlike the gavotte, but quicker, and beginning on the last quarter of the bar. (4) The passepied, a lively dance in quick triple time, beginning on the third beat. These dances are not always cast in binary form, and there are famous examples of gavottes and passepieds en rondeau. Other less common galanteries are : (5) the loure, a slow dance in 4 time and dotted rhythm; (6) the polonaise, a leisurely triple-time piece, with cadences on the second instead of (as in later polonaises) the third beat of the bar; (7) the air, a short movement, quietly flowing, in a more florid style than its The later uses of the word "suite" comprise almost all sets of pieces mainly in forms smaller than those of the sonata, especially such pieces as have been selected from ballets or from incidental music to plays. (D. F. T.)