The French Suite No. 2 in C Minor is a virtuoso keyboard solo whose program elaborates the principal characters and situations in chapter one of Voltaire's picaresque philosophical novel, Candide. The fifth movement conceals the unspoken passions of Candide and Cunégonde under a thin veneer of rational order, until at last a wordless recitative seems to clarify what speech and reason alone could not properly express. The two-voice texture makes for a more intimate and pictorial representation, which is distinguished by imitative turns in both voices.