The date 1744 places the second Part among Bach's latest compositions. On the other hand, like the first Part, it contained work of earlier date.
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor (P. bk. 207 p. 4). It probably dates from circ. 1720-23.
The MS. was discovered in 1876 and is now at Dresden. It was written circ. 1738 and disproves Forkel's conjecture that the fugue did not belong to the Fantasia and is only partially by Bach. The Fugue contains forty-seven bars. As the Autograph is a fair copy the Fugue cannot be called unfinished. See Spitta, iii. 182. The Fantasia is in P. bk. 207 p. 50; the Fugue in P. bk. 212 p. 88. See B.C. xxxvi., xxxviii., and xlii. for other Clavier Fantasias.
The true explanation seems to be that the Prelude of the first Suite (A major) is based upon a Gigue by Charles Dieupart (d. circ. 1740), a popular teacher and composer in England. The words fait pour les Anglois, which head the A major Suite in an early MS., have been wrongly interpreted as applying to the whole set of six. They merely indicate Dieupart's borrowed Gigue. See Grove, vol. i. 701, and Parry, J. S. Bach, p. 463. A copy of the work exists, of date 1724-27, made by one of Bach's pupils. But the composition of the Suites may certainly be assigned to the Cöthen period. They are published in P. bks. 203, 204.
The French Suites undoubtedly date back to the Cöthen period, since they figure, though incomplete, in the Notenbuch of A. M. Bach (1722). They are published in P. bk. 202.
Forkel's incomplete catalogue may be compared with the Bachgesellschaft volumes III., XIV., XXV. (1), XXXI. (2), XXXVI., XLIL, XLIII. (1 and 2), XLV. (1). See generally Schweitzer, ch. 15, and Pirro, pp. 218 ff.
P. bks. 205, 206, 208, 212 (fragment in F minor), 214, 215, 1959.
P. bks. 200, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215, 1959.
For the most part these youthful works will be found in B.G. XXXVI.
P. bk. 207 p. 16.