Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musici...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him
the greatest composer of all time.
Sometime shortly after moving from Cöthen to Leipzig
in 1723, and prompted perhaps by his friendships with
lutenist Christian Weyrauch and a handful of other
Leipzig lute-lovers, J.S. Bach extracted the second
movement (fuga) from his Sonata No. 1 in G minor for
solo violin, BWV 1001 (1720), and reshaped it into a
compact, demanding work for solo lute. The lute
version, which is cataloged as BWV 1000, survives in no
definitive manuscript version, but there is a
contemporary copy in tablature (a system of notation
that Bach himself never once used; the copy was likely
made by Weyrauch). Nowadays, however, any number of
transcriptions and re-transcriptions made by third
parties are made to pass as BWV 1000 -- a necessary
evil, as this Fugue in G minor for lute is played
almost exclusively by Classical guitarists, whose
instrument differs from the Baroque lute in very basic
ways. (And the debate still rages over exactly what
kind or kinds of lute -- if indeed any kind of lute at
all, and not actually Lautenwerk harpsichord -- Bach
intended to play his lute music.)
In any case, the Fugue in G minor, BWV 1000, is the
first of Johann Sebastian's Leipzig period lute works;
it is usually played in conjunction with the slightly
earlier Prelude in C minor, BWV 999, forming a
makeshift prelude and fugue unit (in two different
keys, unless the pieces are transposed, as they very
often are) like those in the vaguely contemporaneous
Well-Tempered Clavier Book I.