This is the first of the suites of the Libro Quarto of 1656, a collection of works organized by genre including toccatas, ricercares, capriccios, and suites. The book was dedicated to Ferdinand IV the Hapsburg Emperor. The suites in this collection all appear with the title partita instead of suite. This suite consists of four dances, an allemande, a gigue, a courante, and a sarabande. The allemande is the longest of the dances. Like many of Froberger's other gigues, the gigue is in common time. The gigue exists in triple time in one manuscript copy giving rise to the theory that Froberger's common time gigues were meant to be played in triple time even when notated in a duple meter. This theory works well in practice, however Johann Gottfried Walther mentions the existence of common time gigues lending evidence that this and other gigues were meant to be played as written.

© Andrus Madsen, All Music Guide