partita

thumb|First page of Johann Sebastian Bach|J.S. Bach's Partita for Violin No. 3

A partita (also partie, partia, parthia, or parthie; a term borrowed from the Italian word ) closely resembles the dance suites of the Baroque Period; the word often occurs as a synonym of suite and variation with the addition of a prelude movement at the beginning of each partita. It was originally the name for a single-instrumental piece of music (16th and 17th centuries), but Johann Kuhnau (Thomaskantor at Leipzig until 1722), his student Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) used it for collections of musical pieces, as a synonym for "suite". In the early Baroque period, the term partita referred to a string of variations or a piece in parts that reflected different dances.