Dear all,
I find it odd that Bach's "lute" music is so contentious. By and
large, it seems that classical guitarists feel more of a need to prove
them to be works intended for lute than us luters. Is it really worth
the effort?
(I'm going to risk getting my head bitten off.) I know it is heresy
to question anything that Bach composed, but ultimately I don't find
his lute works to be all that great. The quality is very uneven, with
some movements being out of this world and others providing a one way
ticket on the bullet town to Sleepy Town. Take BWV 995, for example.
After a thrilling prelude/overture, there is that dreadfully dull
allemande. Many will claim that's it's ineffable genius simply because
the dots on the paper came from JSB's quill. Compositionally speaking,
that allemande is a bland and pedantic motivic exercise that a composer
like Bach could have phoned in while changing Wilhelm Friedemann's
diaper in the middle of the night. Really, it's just bad.(Take both
repeats? Please no! The lighting is very dim in here and I ate right
before the concert. I'm afraid I might...zzzzzzzzzz.) The courante is
only marginally more compelling, but then the sarabande is incredible
again. I find it very difficult to get excited about this stuff,
especially when it is so difficult to pull off technically.
Whatever your feelings about the musical quality of the lute pieces
taken as a whole, it is difficult to claim that Bach took advantage of
the idiomatic resources of the lute.
Chris
Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
--- On Mon, 4/30/12, David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Bach's Lute Suites: This Myth is Busted
To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Monday, April 30, 2012, 9:31 AM
On 30 April 2012 15:19, Roman Turovsky <[1]r.turov...@verizon.net>
wrote:
> JSB never played trumpet either, but he wrote for it competently.
> There is sufficient grounds to assume he would have approached lute
> with equal consideration he afforded any other instrument he wrote
for,
> given his diligence and meticulousness.
> The lute is the only instrument he showed no understanding of -
> because he never wrote for it.
I just love these statements. Replace trumpet by lute and lute by
tenor. and have the statement uttered by a tenor. Or cello & hobo, or
.. There is a general consensus among musicians that Bach never
really understood their instrument, because however good his music for
other instruments, it's always unplayable on their own instrument.
Visiting a coffe break of an orchestra rehearsing the Brandenburg
concertos is where we hear these most, but even a simple cantata
brings out similar opinions as above. ;-)
David
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www.davidvanooijen.nl
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