One of the great things about J. S. Bach's writing, in general, is how wonderfully wrought his works are as purely musical objects. His writing is unfailingly gorgeous, lyrical, and emotionally-charged. But, though constrained by the technical limitations of the forces he is writing for, he will as often write against the natural idiosyncrasies of an instrument as for them. Perhaps this is no more evident than in his vocal writing in his cantatas, which sometimes is so disjunct as to seem more like a violin part than a vocal part (indeed, sometimes it appears in both instruments; the point, of course, is that idiomatic vocal parts often "translate" well to strings, but rarely will it work the other way around).

Which brings me to works which are of unspecified instrumentation (Die Kunst der Fuge is the classic example), and those that might as well be. The accordion might seem to some as a sacrilegious object for the performing of any works of Bach, let alone the great and familiar English Suites, but it shouldn't be, a priori or otherwise. The pieces were originally written for a keyboard instrument, almost surely a harpsichord, and yet, despite being written surely before Bach owned one of those fairly newfangled (forte)pianos, have been performed innumerable times on the piano, without too much grumbling from anyone except for the stubbornly "periodic" of musicians, whose adherence to historical instruments is laudable, in general (I mean that sincerely, as anyone who has listened to the legion examples in the CCM over the years can undoubtedly attest to), but who seem to be off the mark for certain Bachian ideals. The accordion's sonic relationship to the organ is obvious, and in the hands of a master like Stefan Hussong, the pieces work wonderfully well; indeed, the instrument is, again obviously, not wholly unlike a stupendously sophisticated portative organ (which Bach perhaps knew) or a harmonium (which he couldn't possibly know, it not having been invented until well after his death).

Listen to arguably the best-known movement of the English Suites with open ears and minds and see if you agree that, indeed, the pieces work well in this new light.