It is rare indeed to hear J.S. Bach's Prelude in C
minor for solo lute, BWV 999, played as anything but an
introduction to the Fugue in G minor, BWV 1000, a work
probably composed many years after the prelude. The
marriage of the two is one of musical convenience:
neither stands especially well on its own in the modern
concert hall (a venue hardly in Bach's mind when he
wrote them). The prelude was probably written during
the late 1710s or early 1720s when Bach lived in
Cöthen and spent most of...(+)
It is rare indeed to hear J.S. Bach's Prelude in C
minor for solo lute, BWV 999, played as anything but an
introduction to the Fugue in G minor, BWV 1000, a work
probably composed many years after the prelude. The
marriage of the two is one of musical convenience:
neither stands especially well on its own in the modern
concert hall (a venue hardly in Bach's mind when he
wrote them). The prelude was probably written during
the late 1710s or early 1720s when Bach lived in
Cöthen and spent most of his energies on instrumental
music.
As with most of Bach's other lute works, the idea that
the prelude was actually composed for Lautenwerk (a
modified, lute-emulating harpsichord) rather than for
actual lute has to be considered (the point becomes an
unimportant one when one considers that Bach's lute
works are almost never played on either harpsichord or
lute today, the guitar long having absorbed them into
its repertoire). Arpeggiation, of much the same kind
that characterizes many of the preludes in the first
book of the Well-Tempered Clavier (which dates from
around the same time), is constant over the prelude's
minute-and-a-half span. The piece really does seem to
be a prelude to some other musical item; why else would
Bach end it on the dominant?
PARTITION