The problems of playing baroque music on guitar

If you choose the great composers of baroque as your main part of your repertoire, and you don't have a multi-string guitar (8-13 stringed guitars), then you must face technical and musical problems.

First, the classical guitar is not a period insturment, so you will be ignored by early music players. Second challenge: Bach's violin, gamba, and cembalo works, Weiss's lute sonatas or Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas - none of it is written for guitar.

Bach's works: you must know those instruments, in order to imitate their sound, and make a succesful transcription. No all pieces will be fitting.

Violin solos: I prefer adding base, because the sound is very thin.

Gamba solos: in some pieces I prefer bass, in Suite bwv1009 I prefer to transpose it to D major (drop D) and play it with a thicker sound.

Lute suites: I read the essay about the "Lute works" where it is proven that there is no such a thing exists. Most of it he probably wrote to lute-harpsichord. So technically it's similar to the other keyboard works. The Well-tempered Clavier, Italian concerto, Goldberg variations and the Keyboard suites are at he very peak of Bach's art. We have two difficulties here. One - playing the voices as separately as possible, and two - connect the notes when big jumps (between positions) occur. In the baroque era, nobody ever transcripted keyboard music for lute, it just never happened. Understandable, because in many cases the lack of octaves makes it unsuitable. But our great desire to play Bach's most precious pieces, drove us into the very egde of the capacity of the guitar. Impossible jumps and intricate fingerings make every piece a challenge, which can take weeks or even months to deal with. So generally speaking, the standards rise and the new generations bring great talents, who play these musically and with ease. I also try to push myself further.

In the next article about baroque music, I will talk about interpretation.

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