David Schulenberg describes this partita: "The Sixth Partita is the crowning work of the set and Bach's greatest suite. The allemande and sarabande contain some of the most audacious and dramatic melodic embellishment ever written, and the work opens and closes with two particularly ambitious contrapuntal movements."
Peter Williams, however, considers that some movements from
Clavier-Übung I that were composed earlier than others, such as the Gigue from BWV 830, have a "grinding quality that is totally absent from the elegant and novel No. 1." says about Sarabande in his notes in the booklet to his recording of partitas: "As for the following Sarabande, it plunges us into deep reflection. It is a pure lamento and perhaps the most intensely expressive piece in all of Bach's works for harpsichord." American composer
George Rochberg's
harpsichord fantasia Nach Bach contains direct musical quotations from this partita. ==Notes==