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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

Music for Lute-Harpsichord (2 CDs)

Label: Naxos, 8.570470-71
Year: 2008

Performer:

Elizabeth Farr - lute-harpsichord

Tracklist:

Disc 1
Lute Suite in G minor, BWV 995
Lute Suite in E minor, BWV 996
Lute Partita in C minor, BWV 997
Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat major, BWV 998
Prelude in C minor, BWV 999
Fugue in G minor, BWV 1000

Disc 2
Lute Partita in E major, BWV 1006a
Keyboard Sonata in D minor, BWV 964 (after BWV 1003)
Sarabande con Partite in C major, BWV 990

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music for the lute throughout his career. He had in his possession not only a lute but also two lute-harpsichords (Lautenwerke), gut-strung keyboard instruments allowing a fuller range of sound than the normal lute. For the present recording Elizabeth Farr plays a lute-harpsichord reconstructed by Keith Hill from Bach’s own specification for one of his two instruments.

Bach’s works for lute are one of those odd corners of the Baroque corpus, another example of Bach’s encyclopedic musical interests, even for instruments that were on their way out of fashion. Certainly Bach was acquainted with lutenists at most stages of his career, but he did not own one and conceived his music for it mostly through the medium of the keyboard. Not long after the new complete set of the Bach lute works by Paul O’Dette met with my approval, this recording crossed my desk, with keyboard specialist Elizabeth Farr playing them on a Lautenwerk, or lute-harpsichord. We know that Bach owned two of them, keyboard instruments with gut (and some brass) strings that imitated the sound of the lute, and that he appears to have composed at least some of his "lute pieces" to be played on it. He used keyboard notation instead of lute tablature, and some of the pieces are actually impossible to play on a lute without some creative adaptation.

No historical examples of the instrument have survived from the 18th century, but builders have made attempts to reconstruct them. Historical instrument builder and fellow Michigan State University alumnus Keith Hill designed the Lautenwerk heard on these two discs according to the specifications Bach recorded for one of the instruments in his collection (copied by Jacob Adlung in 1768). Some of the pieces are arrangements by Bach of other works-a cello suite, a violin partita, and a violin sonata, and they do not necessarily work as idiomatically for this instrument. A delightful piece that is quite new to me is BWV 990, a C major sarabande that Bach reportedly adapted from Lully’s Bellerophon (although I have yet to find it in the score), followed by 15 partite, or variations, the last four of which are a mini-dance suite.

Farr plays all of this music with a delicious sensibility, embellishing gracefully and providing plenty of variation among registrations between repeats and sections, giving the impression of performance by a consort of instruments.

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