Johann Sebastian Bach: 6 Suites, Transcriptions for Guitar

Our decision to add yet another adaptation to the wealth of those existing has its reason: All arrangers so far have given in to the temptation of turning Bach’s latent polyphony into a manifest one by adding additional bass notes. Our approach, however, is a different one: We are proposing an arrangement that keeps as close to the original as possible, adding not a single note.

Since keeping each piece in its original key would have limited the musical experience and restricted playing techniques, we decided to – where necessary - transpose each suite to a key suiting the instrument.

Even the guitarist who (as yet) finds Bach’s decidedly more complex suites for lute too demanding will discover these six compositions to be in their range, allowing them to learn and play a suite in its entirety, getting to know the composer and his style.

Edited by Reinbert Evers und Christian Holzapfel

Suite I     A-Major (BWV 1007, original key G-Major)

Suite II     a-Minor (BWV 1008, original key d-Minor)

Suite III    A-Major (BWV 1009, original key C-Major)

Suite IV   A-Major (BWV 1010, original key E-flat-Major)

Suite V    a-Minor (BWV 1011, original key c-Minor)

Suite VI   D-Major (BWV 1012, original key D-Major)