suite no. 3 in e minor (from six baroque suites) (1984)

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Reddy wrote suite no. 3 as a contemporary work in older style, as with nos. 1 and 2. It was completed in August 1984 while the composer was teaching at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) and is based on the German musical letters ‘C-H-E’ (C-B-natural-E) from the name Christine (Lucia), a colleague at UDW. Reddy premiered it along with suites 1 and 2 at UDW on 27 September 1984. The suite is the most tragic in the whole set of six - which collectively describe an arc of descent into despair and return to hope - its final ‘Ground’ (a chaconne) ending abruptly after a quotation from J.S. Bach’s St John Passion.