Although the genre of the suite is of French origin, the orchestral suite is a German invention. Its first examples date from the middle of the 17th century; however, the suitedid not become truly fashionable until the early 18th century, owing to Telemann and his contemporaries. The German composers always began the suite with a large-scale French overture and named the entire suite after it as an ‘ouverture’. The French overture consists of two distinctive musical sections. The first, a solemn introduction, features sharp, dotted rhythms, and the second is a lengthy, fast fugato where – after the Italian concerto – orchestral and solo alternate. Frequently after the fast section (and in all of Bach’s four orchestral suites) the first theme with the dotted rhythms returns. The C-major suite features French composers’ favourite woodwind trio consisting of two oboes and a bassoon, and the winds are often given solos not only in the middle section of the overture, but also in the dances. The majority of the dance movements – again after French fashion – bring together two similar types of dance. Typically comprising solos, the second danceserves as a middle section sandwiched between two renderings of the first. The dances of the C-major Suite are as follows:

1. Courante (French-style, with dotted rhythms); 2. Gavotte I–II (with wind solos in the second); 3. Forlane (a lively dance of North Italian origin); 4. Minuet I–II (the second played by the stringsonly); 5. Bourrée I–II (the second played by the winds only); 6. Passepied I–II (the second being a variation of the first, where the oboes play a florid version over the strings playing the first bourrée).