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In music, a suite is an organized set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed at a single sitting. In the Baroque era, the pieces are all in the same key, and generally modelled after dance music. In the eighteenth century suites were also known as overtures or ouvertures.

The "classical" suite consisted of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, in that order, and developed during the 17th century16th century 17th century 18th century more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601- 1700. During this period, the power of England and the United Provinces increased; while that of in FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., the gigue appearing later than the others. However, it was never totally fixed in form, and the later addition of an overture to make up an "overture-suite" was extremely popular with GermanThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east composers; Telemann claimed to have written over 200, BachJohann Sebastian Bach ( March 21, 1685 July 28, 1750) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His works, noted for their intellectual depth, technical comma had his four orchestral suites, and George Frideric HandelGeorge Frideric Handel ( German Georg Friedrich Handel , ( February 23, 1685 April 14, 1759) was a German-born British Baroque music composer. His best-known work is Messiah , an oratorio set to texts from the King James Bible. It is customarily performed put his Water MusicMay refer to Water Music the suite composed by George Frideric Handel. Water Music a novel by T. Boyle Water Music a novel by Melanie Kershaw ( BooksEnthsiast.com ). and Music for the Royal Fireworks in this form.

Bach and Handel frequently added additional pieces between the sarabande and gigue; Handel wrote 22 keyboard suites, while Bach produced multiple suites for cello, violin, flute, and other instruments, as well as his French suites and English suites for keyboard. For Bach especially, the suite form was a base on which to spin more elaborate sequences.

By the 1750s however, the suite had come to be seen as old-fashioned, superseded by symphony and concerto, and we see few composers still writing suites. In the 19th century the term made a comeback, but now meaning either an instrumental selection from a larger work such as an opera or ballet, a sequence of smaller pieces tied together by a common theme, such as the nationalistic ideas of Grieg, Sibelius, or Tchaikovsky, or as a deliberately archaism, as in the recent Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano by Claude Bolling.