Place and Date: Weimar, c1708-17 (or earlier).
Sources: DSB P 801 (Walther); copy by Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber; B Br 114093 (= Fétis 2960).
Editions: BG 45; NBA V/10.
Movements: Prelude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – Bourrée – Gigue
Two copies of BWV 996 are in the hands of organists‑one a colleague, one a student of Bach‑while the third source gives the piece in a keyboard version transposed to A minor. In Walther’s copy somebody has added an indication that the piece is for the lute‑harpsichord, but the handwriting is unidentified.
BWV 996 is a true lute work. It lies entirely within the instrument’s range, which is lower and smaller (restricted to three octaves) than usual in Bach’s keyboard music. Many passages contain figuration more suited to the lute than to the keyboard, and the inner voices and even the bass are often broken up in a way that would not be necessary in a keyboard work. Bach’s harmony and voice‑leading is, as in the unaccompanied violin and cello music, entirely self‑sufficient.
The E‑Minor Suite is clearly the earliest of the surviving lute pieces, although written in a relatively mature style. The prelude is actually a self‑contained prelude and fugue, but the fugue is relatively short. Despite its brevity, the fugue achieves considerable intensity as the texture builds to four real parts in bars 46‑54 and again in the closing bars.
The first two dances are wholly in French style, but the sarabande already reveals what was to be his characteristic mixture of French and Italian styles. The last two dances, a bourrée and a gigue, seem less close to French models.