Complete Lute Suites

Abstract

lohann Sebastian Bach's lute suites IWV 995,996, 957, and 1006a are among the most challenging and musically rewarding works in the classical guitar repertoire. This recording features the performing editions of the noted Bach scholar Rosalyn Tureck, with fingerings by Sharon Isbin. The guitar, a close relative of the lute, is perfectly suited to the delicate textures and part writing of these suites. Since Bach was an avid practitioner of transcription, performing these works on the guitar is ideologically compatible with the composer's own tradition of arranging music. Two of these suites, in fact, are Bach's arrangements of works he composed c 1720 at Cothen, Germany: BWV 995 first appeared as the unaccompanied cello suite BWV 1011, and his violin partita BWV 1006 was the forerunner of suite BWV 1006a. Although these four works are commonly classified as lute suites, Bach's intended instru¬ment of performance is clear only in BWV 995. His autographed manuscript of this suite, which was written between 1727 and r73i,bearsthedesig nation "Pieces pour la Luth a Monsieur Schouster*; an extant version of the work in French lute tablature, transcribed by an unknown copyist in the mid eighteenth century, further substantiates the use of the lute as the performing instrument. The question of instrumentation in the remaining suites is complicated by unidiomatic technical elements found in all the suites. These make it seem unlikely that Bach actually played the lute, although he owned one and knew promi nent lutenists of his time, including Sylvius Weiss and lohann Kropfgans. Suites BWV 996,997 and 1006a, in particular, contain portions which do not lie naturally for the instrument, and must be transcribed to be performable. A version of BWV 997 in French lute tablature by [ohann Christian Weyrauch (i694-i77i)evenomits that suite's magnificently intricate Fugue and brilliant Double, presumably because of challenges of tuning and register.