After several dances, each contrasting in style and tempo, Bach employs the use of formatting diversity. The minuets are notable in many ways. It has a fast and skittish undertone, with constantly racing notes and moving rhythms. However, it is most notable in the fact that the Minuet is the only dance that is directly separated into two parts, a Minuet 1, and a Minuet 2. In Bach suites, he starts his first two with the minuets because, at the time, they were the most widely recognized form of dance. It was a waltz style jig that everyone knew, from the aristocracy to the proletariat. Due to its popularity in Western Europe, this compositional form was also popular with later composers such as Scarlatti, Mozart, and Haydn, who were able to take it and further expand upon it.

The first Minuet starts with the same G-D-B chord that begins all the previous movements, providing a sense of continuity throughout the entire suite. The minuet sets itself in a major chord with a more majestic and jolly tone. Three measure phrase then arrives at a climactic trill section at measure four followed by a series of grace notes. This first motif sets the idea of four-bar phrases that can be seen throughout both dances. Measures five to eight repeat a similar rhythmic section. Two rising eight notes followed by a quarter note that completes the chord. The line then proceeds to falling eighth notes that then resolve. At this point, it is worth stating how impressive and incredible it is that Bach is able to establish such patterns. In classical music, such style of musical patterns would not be commonly used until more than fifty years after Bach’s death. Below, Maisky demonstrates such patterns.

The second minuet, almost in direct contrast, begins in minor form. However, it continues the same four-bar phrase as shown in the earlier minuet one.  This time the phrases continue with straight eighth notes and falling quarter notes to supplement them.  The middle section of the 2nd Minuet is a very lyrical but sad section. The music continually baits the audience into sections where the human ear things that the music is going to resolve. However, instead of resolving the cadence, Bach tricks them and continues with an alternative figure. The piece then returns to the familiar first minuet. However, upon hearing the minor second, the perception of the recap is now entirely different.

Minuet 1 and 2