Our popular Lindsey Chapel Series provides free in-person performances by solo musicians and small ensembles from 12:00–1:00pm on Thursdays throughout Lent. This year we present the complete English Suites for keyboard of J. S. Bach performed by six extraordinary Boston harpsichordists. Experience the architectural beauty and intimate acoustics of one of the most beautiful Lady Chapels in the country. The 2025 Lindsey Chapel Series will not be available to stream.

“Six great Suites, consisting of preludes, allemandes, courants, sarabandes, jigs, etc. They are known by the name of the English suites because the composer made them for an Englishman of rank.” - J. N. Forkel, 1802 from Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work

The origin of the title of J. S. Bach’s English Suites, written in a mixture of French and Italian styles remains mysterious to this day.  Forkel’s explanation, based largely on information which he received from Bach’s sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, suggests the likely use of the title English Suites among members of Bach’s circle of family and students. In most surviving copies from the first half of the eighteenth century, the name given is simply suites avec préludes. No autograph manuscript survives to shed further light, however a copy once in the possession of Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian refers to the first suite as

“Suite 1 avec Prelude pour le clavecin. A#. composée. par.Jean Sebastian Bach. Fait par les Anglois. pp Jean Chretian Bach”. Considerable evidence suggests that, whatever the significance of their title, the English Suites constituted Bach’s first major essay in systematically composing keyboard suites.

-Peter Watchorn