The epithet “English Suites” – as with the “French Suites” – did not originate with Bach himself. In contrast to the six intimate French Suites, Bach’s English Suites adopt a grander tone, each one opening with a prelude in concertante style. Two of the sarabandes survive in additional versions that feature ornamentation by Bach himself; an impressive testimony to his intended virtuosic and opulent harpsichord style in these pieces.
Despite the lack of autograph sources, the musical text of these works has survived extraordinarily well and reliably thanks to several contemporary manuscript copies. For this revised Urtext edition Ullrich Scheideler has undertaken an exemplary investigation of authentic variants, especially in the ornamentation. All are documented here, and made directly accessible to the player in the musical text itself.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
