The English Suites, BWV 806–811, are a set of suites written by Johann Sebastian Bach for harpsichord and generally thought to be the earliest of his 19 suites for keyboard. Originally, their date of composition was thought to have been between 1718 and 1720, but more recent research suggests that the composition was likely earlier, around 1715, while the composer was living in Weimar. Bach's English Suites display less affinity with Baroque English keyboard style than do the French Suites to French Baroque keyboard style; the name "English" is thought to date back to a claim made by the 19th-century Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel that these works might have been composed for an English nobleman, but no evidence has emerged to substantiate this claim. Surface characteristics of the English Suites strongly resemble those of Bach's French Suites and Partitas, particularly in the sequential dance-movement structural organization and treatment of ornamentation.
