Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major

Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4 must have appealed to a wide range of tastes when it was performed—amidst coffee and cakes—at Zimmermann’s Kaffeehaus in Leipzig during the 1730s. The serious-minded probably enjoyed the long French overture most, with its brassy opening and garrulous fugal writing where most of the orchestra gets in on the melodic action. But there were doubtless many who preferred the lighter dances which followed: pairs of “Bourrées” and “Menuets,” divided by the manly swagger of a “Gavotte,” and a cheeky, concluding “Réjouissance” —a rare dance-type, also famously used by Handel in his Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749). True connoisseurs would have been most impressed by Bach’s orchestral colors. In his final Leipzig version of the work, he enjoyed pitting three contrasting groups of instruments against each other—brass, strings, and woodwind. Most effective is the witty banter between strings and lavish woodwind—three oboes and a bassoon—which enlivens the “Bourrées” and “Gavotte.”