In the Trauerode (BWV198), a funeral cantata for Christiane Eberhardine, Electress of Saxony, Bach wrote for two lutes. In an early version of the Saint Matthew Passion, the aria Komm süsses Kreuz has a wonderfully written lute part, but the lute was supplanted by the viola da gamba in the later version. John Passion when Jesus ascends to heaven. A bass aria with lute, violas d’amore and continuo is the crucial moment in the St. My subject is this: How did this misconception get started, perpetuated, and why does it persist in the face of so much contrary evidence?īach wrote effectively for the lute as a colour instrument in several choral works. External and internal evidence presents too many contradictions to ignore. Two of the suites, in E major and G minor, are two-clef arrangements of earlier pieces for strings with only passing resemblance to the lute style. They are not technically possible on the lute without fundamental changes to the text. Known, with minor variations, as “The Lute Suites of Bach” for at least 100 years, the pieces were never composed as a group, though this is the form in which they have repeatedly been published and recorded. A more accurate picture of historic performance practices and renewed scholarship about the details of his work re-evaluates Bach’s legacy, but the myth of Bach lute suites, especially among guitarists, lives on largely unchallenged.Hungry for international credibility in the concert hall and on recordings, during the 20th Century guitarists transcribe and adopt the music as part of their native repertoire.Cultural nationalism and politics play a role. Without anyone around who plays the lute well enough to refute the idea, it is gradually repeated and eventually accepted.A German musicologist presents a contrary opinion, claiming that Bach is a composer of lute music.The music is first indexed, edited and published by the Bach Gesellschaft in the 19th Century as keyboard music. Most of his music remains in hand-copied versions (MSS) in his lifetime.
With the arrival of an enlarged and improved instrument, he adapts favourite earlier material to it. Over a period of years and in a mood to experiment, Bach writes thin-textured music for his own use on a gut-strung keyboard instrument or clavichord.The real story is everything that happened after his death that connects the works in question to the lute. Recent scholarship and the work of a number of makers and players of 18th Century-style keyboards have made it obvious that Bach wrote the music for, and probably at, the lute-harpsichord. The apocryphal lute works lie well within the confines of Bach’s established keyboard style, and other than a poorly thought-out arrangement, ill-suited to the instrument and worked-out at the keyboard (BWV 995, Suite in G minor), almost nothing from the composer really links them to the lute.
Wikipedia reads:” Bach composed a suite and several other works for solo lute.” You know what I am going to say next–perhaps you should sit down…: A more up-to-date reading of the evidence would be that Bach did not write any music specifically intended for solo lute. Bach wrote four suites and a number of miscellaneous pieces for the lute, now played on the guitar. Part IĪs student guitarists, we learned that J. All images provided by Clive Titmuss. Click on the images to enlarge. Visit his website to see more of his work and recordings ( ). Previously published on Classical Guitar Canada.
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