J. S. Bach: Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites Arranged for Guitar

J. S. Bach · Stanley Yates

Feb 2011 · Mel Bay Publications

About this ebook

Although Johann Sebastian Bach did not write any music for the guitar, transcriptions of his unaccompanied string music and music for lute have long been a part of the guitar repertoire. Despite the respect that this music commands among musicians and audiences, debate still exists as to what constitutes an appropriate means of transcribing, interpreting and performing this music on the guitar. It is this debate that prompted this long-awaited edition of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites by scholar and concert guitarist, Stanley Yates. This definitive work includes performance scores, comparison scores, and an invaluable 40-page guide entitled "Arranging, Interpreting, and Performing the Music of J.S. Bach." Furthermore, the author offers comments on his arranging process and suggestions on using this edition including: ornamentation, slurs, fingerings, notation, and implementation of the comparison scores. Written in standard notation in guitar-friendly keys.

About the author

Johann Sebastian Bach, born March 31, 1685 - July 28, 1750, was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. To a large extent, Bach's musical style fits in the conventions of his day, which is the final stage of the baroque style. Religious music was at the center of Bach's output for much of his life. The hundreds of sacred works he created are usually seen as manifesting not just his craft but a truly devout relationship with God. He had taught Luther's Small Catechism as the Thomaskantor in Leipzig, and some of his pieces represent it The Lutheran chorale was the basis of much of his work. In elaborating these hymns into his chorale preludes, he wrote more cogent and tightly integrated works than most, even when they were massive and lengthy. The large-scale structure of every major Bach sacred vocal work is evidence of subtle, elaborate planning to create a religiously and musically powerful expression. For example, the St Matthew Passion, like other works of its kind, illustrated the Passion with Bible text reflected in recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales, but in crafting this work, Bach created an overall experience that has been found over the centuries since to be both musically thrilling and spiritually profound. Bach published or carefully compiled in manuscripts many collections of pieces that explored the range of artistic and technical possibilities inherent in almost every genre of his time except opera. For example, The Well-Tempered Clavier comprises two books, each of which presents a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, displaying a dizzying variety of structural, contrapuntal, and fugal techniques.