Bach wrote this bourrΘe as part of a suite for the lute: king of instruments in the Renaissance, dethroned in Bach's time by the rising popularity of keyboard instruments. A Bach suite, you may know, is a collection of fairly short pieces strung together for dancing. Each piece in the suite has a predictable rhythm and step so that Baroque socialites could get down with-out falling down.
Like most Baroque dance movements this bourrΘe has a "binary" form, meaning two major sections, each repeated once. This also helped dancers know what to expect, and perhaps how much of the tune was left before they could catch a breather!
Bach wrote only a few works for the lute, but all are cherished by fretboard aficionados today. Bach owned a lute, but there is no proof that he actually played it. He may have owned the instrument as part of his scheme to build a "Lautenclavicymbel," a strange cross between a lute and a harpsichord. All of his lute music may, in fact, have been written for this beast, of which he possessed two specimens.
