Suite in E minor, BWV 996: V. Bourrée

The Bourrée is the fifth movement of the Suite in E minor, BWV 996, one of Bach's earliest surviving keyboard suites — probably written between 1708 and 1717, well before the Leipzig years. The manuscript is headed aufs Lautenwerck, the lute-harpsichord: a gut-strung keyboard instrument built to imitate a lute. It is not a guitar piece, and it is not a lute piece either, though it has spent the last century being both.

Its modern life began outside classical music. Jethro Tull recorded it in 1969 as Bourée, and a generation of guitarists learned it from that record rather than from Bach. That is why editions of it are everywhere in guitar collections and comparatively scarce in keyboard ones.

What to expect on the page: in E minor it sits well under the hands on guitar, and most guitar editions keep that key. Piano editions usually keep it too. The two voices are almost entirely independent, so it is a better sight-reading exercise than its reputation as a beginner piece suggests — the difficulty is holding the lower line steady, not the notes themselves.