This video discusses how the movement not only introduces the first partita, BWV 1002, but also sets the stage for all the partitas in the collection.

It is probably not simply by happenstance that Bach began the first partita with an Allemanda (a Franco/Italianate word referring to a Germanic dance) in the French overture style. Using the nomenclature as a simple starting point, the video discusses the cosmopolitan life at the courts and how this allemanda embodies it all.

We visit Lully at the Court of Louis XIV in Versailles, and Corelli in Italy; we then take a look at the European climate and the events and circumstances that led up to the time when Bach composed the piece.

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