Suite 1. VI. Gigue (6/8 on the faster side)

The Gigues are all about swirling waters, circular patterns, impassioned energy. There is another syncopated pattern to start out. It starts on the pick-up note on six, then goes 6123 45 6123 45 before resolving after a few measures. It's like a dog trying to catch its tail. (1 and 4 should be the strong beats in 6/8, which is really two measures of 3/8 stuck together, so starting on 6 and creating two uneven groups of notes creates an interesting rhythmic tension. [At least that's how I hear it. I keep waiting for a musiclologist to write in and set me straight, if I happen to be full of **it].)

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The high points of this first Suite for me have been the Sarabande and the Menuet. The Prelude is still too overfamiliar to me (maybe if I listen to it more it will become strange again!) and the Allemande is too respectable. It doesn't seem to stay with me as long even though I've heard it 25 times. I don't dislike any of it; it's more a matter of distinguishing the A++ from the A++++.

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Too bad I can't write like Maryrose Larkin, who is doing actual writing about the Suites as opposed to mere commentary.