Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
y su escritura no resulta del todo idiomtica para el instrumento. Tres de las siete
piezas existen para otro instrumento (cosa por dems habitual en el catlogo de
Bach): la suite en sol menor BWV 995 es la BWV 1011 para violoncelo; la fuga en
sol menor BWV 1000 es la BWV 539 en re menor- para rgano y la de la sonata
BWV 1001 para violn; y la suite en mi mayor BWV 1006 es una transcripcin de
la partita BWV 1006 para violn solo, cuyo preludio existe como la sinfona con
rgano y orquesta de la cantata BWV 29 y en re mayor de la sinfona BWV 120a.
El preludio en do menor BWV 999 es parte de una serie de pequeos preludios para
clave, copiados por Johann Peter Kellner, quien lo intitul Preludio para lad de
Johann Sebastian Bach. Incluso el preludio, fuga y allegro en mi bemol mayor BWV
998, que es una obra original con un manuscrito autgrafo, tiene de mano de Bach el
doble destino para el lad y el clave.
Toda esta ambigedad, esta falta de claridad histrica, permite preguntarse:
escribi Bach estas obras para el lad? pueden las cuatro suites para lad ser
consideradas un ciclo articulado por Bach como el de las sonatas y partitas para
violn o las suites para violoncelo?
Hay una respuesta en cada versin -grabada o en vivo- de estas obras, al
tratar entender lo dismbolo de este repertorio, lo poco homogneo que resulta el
grupo de estas cuatro suites al compararlo con otros en el catlogo de Bach. El ciclo
de obras para lad posee la cualidad de ser una admirable sntesis de las formas
instrumentales: una recoleccin de posibilidades con su variedad de danzas y
movimientos, as como la forma de articularlos. Para concebirlo cada intrprete debe
partir de un texto, y rehacer el trazo de su historia puede ser un punto de partida para
imaginar esta msica.
www.raulzambrano.com
A L B E R T O C R U Z P R I E T O, piano
Poseedor de un repertorio eclctico y poco comn, Alberto
Cruzprieto ha presentado numerosos recitales en: Mxico,
Finlandia, Alemania, Egipto, Irlanda, Holanda, Escocia, Inglaterra,
Francia, Estados Unidos, Canad, Polonia, Blgica, Hungra,
Colombia, Espaa, El Salvador y Austria. Algunos de los
eventos mss relevantes en los que ha participado son: Mxico,
esplendor de treinta siglos en Nueva York y San Antonio, Feria
Internacional del Libro en Frankfurt, Expo Internacional de
Sevilla, Festival Europalia en Bruselas, Festival Internacional
de piano en Bucaramanga, Colombia, Saison Musicale de Muse
de Larme en Lhtel National des Invalides, Festival Musiques
Mtisses en Angoulme y diversos festivales de World Music en
Nancy, Strasbourg, Poitiers, La Rochelle y Massy, en Francia. Su
discografa est integrada por veintisiete discos compactos entre
los que destacan: Bleu, Ponce y sus contemporneos, Imgenes
Mexicanas para piano, Dco, Concierto para piano y alientos de
Stravinsky bajo la direccin de Eduardo Mata, Valses Mexicanos
1900, Canciones Arcaicas con la soprano Lourdes Ambriz y
Gauguin, nominado al Grammy Latino 2001. De particular
relevancia es la serie de grabaciones de cuentos con Mario Ivn
Martnez: Cuentos de Gigantes, Conoces a Wolfie?, Pulgarcito,
El Soldadito de pomo, El ruiseor y la Rosa y El patito feo. Ha
sido miembro del ensamble Solistas de Mxico creado por el gran
director mexicano Eduardo Mata. Pertenece al grupo Concertistas
de Bellas Artes desde 1984.
After the organ, the lute harpsichord [Lautenwerke] is one of the most beautiful
of the keyboard instruments and gets its name from the fact that it simulates the
lutes delicate sound, both in the low and high range. Thus, when Mister Johann
Nikolaus Bach plays his Lautenwerke, with the eyes of his listeners upon him, he
appears as one of the best lute players and his instrument as a true lute.
Jakob Adlung, Musica Mechanica Organoedi
not altogether idiomatic for the lute. Three of the seven pieces appear in transcribed
versions for other instruments (a common occurrence in Bachs catalogue): the
suite in G minor BWV 995 is the equivalent of the suite BWV 1011 for cello;
the fugue in G minor BMV 1000 is the fugue in D minor for organ BWV 539 and
that of the sonata BWV 1001 for violin; finally, the suite in E Major BWV 1006a
is a transcription of the partita for violin solo BWV 1006, whose prelude exists as
a symphony for organ and orchestra of the cantata BWV 29 and in D major of the
symphony BWV 120a. The prelude in C minor BWV 999 forms part of a series of
short preludes for keyboard copied by Johann Peter Kellner, who entitled it Prelude
for lute by Johann Sebastian Bach. Even the prelude, fugue and allegro in E-flat
Major BWV 998, which is an original work with a handwritten manuscript, was
assigned by Bach for both lute and keyboard.
Given such ambiguity and lack of historical clarity, one may wonder
whether Bach in fact composed these pieces for the lute. Can the four suites for lute
be considered one of Bachs explicit cycles, like the ones of the sonatas and partitas
for violin or the suites for cello?
Each version, whether live or recorded, offers an answer to this question
in its attempt at an understanding of this multifaceted group of four suites and its
lack of homogeneity compared with Bachs other cycles. The cycle of lute works
stands out as an admirable synthesis of instrumental forms which, given the variety
of its dances and movements and their manifold interpretative expressions, signifies
a wealth of possibilities. In order to grasp the meaning of the work, each performer
has to start from a text and piece its history together as a starting point for imagining
this music.
The two existing documental sources of the suite in E minor BWV 996
stem from musicians close to Bach. One is a copy made by the Weimar organist
(and author of the Musicalisches Lexicon) Johann Gottfried Walther, who entitled
it Praeludio- with the suite in E-flat da Gio. Bast. Bach. This manuscript forms part
of the Johann Ludwig Krebs collection and its style suggests its date to lie between
1707 and 1710. The other version is authored by Bach student, Heinrich Nikolaus
Gerber.2 The first movement, passagio-presto, proves very similar to that periods
toccatas but on a smaller scale. It is written as an overture a la franaise, with a
cadential opening that meshes with passages of chains of dotted chords, leading to a
contrapuntal imitation.
The dimension and spirit of the remaining dances (an allemande, a French
style courante, an extensive sarabande in 3/2, a bourre in two voices that lacks the
second dance that usually follows and the gigue in 12/8, three constantly moving
voices) all evoke a primeval form of articulating the suite thus suggesting that this
might be the oldest of the pieces. Walthers copy may well date from between 1710
to 1717 and Gerbers from 1725, the latter not being assigned a specific instrument.
There are good reasons for assuming that the piece was written for the baroque lute;
yet perhaps the most significant piece of information to be taken from Walthers title
is the phrasewhich only God knows who wrote itaufs Lauten Werck. It is not
unlikely that this anonymous writer was referring to an instrument other than the
lute, namely the lautenwerck, or lautenwerk, or, as Adlung writes it, lautenwerke,
that is to say the lautenklavier.
2
A third version of this work can be found in the Royal Library of Brussels. It is for harpsichord
and transposed up a fourth, in A minor.
We have no autograph manuscript from the suite, or sonata, or partita
(for there is a source for each one of these titles) in C minor BWV 997. Quite to
the contrary, the difficulty of defining this work results precisely from the fact that
so many and such different copies of the piece exist. While none of these versions
leads us to question Bachs authorship, the doubt remains as to which instrument he
assigned each one to, an uncertainty that proves relevant in more than one sense, as
many of the differences that exist between the copies lie in the changes the sheet
music had to undergo in order to adjust to a particular instrument. Five manuscripts
by different authors can be found in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, and all take the
piece to be a sonata for harpsichord in five movements (prelude, fugue, sarabanda,
gigue and double). In Johann Friedrich Agricolas manuscript, Carl Philipp Emanuel
Bach wrote the following title C Moll/Praeludium, Fuge, Sarabande/ und Gigue/
frs clavier/ von J.S. Bach, which apparently suggests, from first hand, the works
musical intention.
Yet how to interpret a text that so markedly separates the upper from the
lower voice? One might suppose that the five copies actually try to adapt the piece for
the harpsichord and that the differences between them reflect the search for different
solutions experimenting with changing tessitura and voice conduction, particularly
with regard to the fugue. One of the editors of the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, Alfred
Doerffel states: I cannot ascertain for which instrument Bach wrote this piece,
whether he conceived it for an instrument to be accompanied by a keyboard or for the
keyboard itself with additional chords for the right hand or for both hands. Doerffel
was inclined to consider it to be a work for violin with accompaniment, although the
high voice does not seem to be well adapted for this instrument. What does prove
quite common is to find versions for the flute of both older and modern kinds
that incorporate this sonata in their repertoire. Probably Doerffel was unaware of
the French tablature manuscripts for lute (or he may have known them but was
unable to read that kind of annotation), which his predecessor had acquired in the
Musikbibliothek of the State of Leipzig. Written by Johann Christian Weyraucht,
these manuscripts contain three of the suites movements: the prelude, the sarabanda
and the gigue. From Weyraucht--notary public, lute player and Bachs godfather
also come the lute version of the fugue in G minor BWV 1000. The text offers
at least two points of departure for a closer interpretation. The first one concerns
the upper voice that lays one octave below the version for harpsichord, thereby
rendering more logical its relationship to the remaining voices. Given the texts
proximity to its author, it may offer a clue as to how the original version must have
been. The second key feature concerns the title assigned to the work Partita/al/liuto/
Composta dal / Signore J. S. Bach. Weyraucht leaves us with a piece that by lacking
the double and especially the fugue a fact that perhaps reflected his limitations
as an instrumentalist-- also is missing the feel of a sonata contained in Agricolas
manuscript, but it carries a feel of a partita in three movements, whose prelude holds
the name of fantasia and which defines the character of the entire ensemble. By
contemplating the manuscript sources, we can perhaps ascertain the value of this work
as a mirror of the entire repertoire for the lute: a conciliation of diverse dispositions.
Here the dance combines with the counterpoint, the double attribute in the gigue with
its double of the rhythmic and virtuous, or the da capo structure in the fugue--a rare
occurrence with Bach3 that allows for a return to, and a resignification of, its point of
origin. Certainly, one cannot speak of a singular and definitive version of this piece. An
attempt to interpret it requires bringing together the manifold aspects that constitute its
history, where each meter is indicative of the works broader structure that constitutes
one of Bachs most significant instrumental opus.
3
Another piece that contains a fuga da capois the Prelude, fugue and allegro in E flat BWV 998.
A work that also exists for the lute and whose analysis might help to better understand how to assemble this
suites fugue. Probably, Bach wrote both of these pieces around 1740, that is, while he was initiating the project
that represents the synthesis of his contrapuntal thinking: The Art of the Fugue BWV 1080.
The manuscript of the suite in C minor BWV 995 can be dated from
between 1727 and 1731 and it corresponds bar by bar to BWV 1011, that is, the
fifth suite of the cycle for cello, written during the Cthen period, between 1717 and
1723. Unlike the BWV 996 and 997, and the six suites for cello solo, a handwritten
manuscript of this work does exist, which is housed in the Royal Library of Belgium
in Brussels. The cover states the following: Pices pour la luth/ / Monsieur
Schouster/ par/ J. S. Bach. Who might Monsieur Schouster be? Well, we cannot be
sure; perhaps we are dealing with Josef Schuster, a lute player who performed in
Dresden from 1741 to 1784 (the works dedicatory, unlike the rest of the sheet music,
lacks a dateable handwriting, such that it might have been attached later on, and the
sheet musics first page simply is headed Suite pour la luth par J. S. Bach). Yet it
is worth inquiring into the identity of the dedicatee, for in this case the instrument
and the player might go hand in hand. Did Bach play the lute? The transcription
offers a series of difficulties in certain positions and in the disposition of the chords,
both of which are hardly idiomatic for the lute. Would one have to change part
of its writing? A contemporary copy of this suite, written anonymously in French
tablature, offers a series of modifications in that sense. Beyond the quality of the
undertaking, the copy by the unknown lute player renders clear to us an instrumental
necessity contemporaneous to Bach, and it allows us to wonder who the author was
thinking of when he transcribed the piece. Perhaps of nobody, perhaps he imagined
this music rather abstractly with regard to the sound quality of a lute. Or perhaps he
reworked the cello suite, attempting to come close to the voice of the lute by means
of the keyboard, an instrument that would be more familiar to him; a fact that refers
us back to the Lautenwerke. In any event, his version leaves a suite for the lute of
mature structure and one which serves a model function for the cello cycle at large.
For example, the prelude of this suite and the one from BWV 996 both of which
were written in the same overture a la franaise format share an introduction with
clef, the other in C clef on the first line), and the same holds true for the remaining
dances. Perhaps for this reason, somebody at the beginning of the nineteenth century
decided, albeit with unfortunate results, to add to the manuscript a cover sheet
stating the following: Suite/ pour le Clavecin/ compos par/ Jean Sebast. Bach./
Original. There is no convincing argument that ascribes this piece to any particular
instrument. Its rediscovery during the nineteenth century was accompanied by a long
debate of that kind concerned with determining the authors original intention. The
composition in these two clefs (F and C on the first line), the structure of the bass line
and even certain difficult passages for the baroque lutesimilar to those of the BWV
995 transcribed by Bachhave all led to ascribe the piece to the cycle of works
for lute. And in any case, trying to identify the original instrument the composer
intended for the workafter realizing that he transformed the piece on the organ in
form of two cantatas, on top of the violin versionin the end leads to the following
relatively evident conclusion: the authors intention lies in moving the music from
one instrument to another in order to augment its expressive range.
Faced with all this music that traverses the Lautenwerke, the harpsichord,
the lute, the cello and the violin, music that moves from the suite to the sonata,
and from the counterpoint to the dance, makes us aware of the beauty held by such
a plurality of instruments. And it is on the basis of this contrasting universe that
this complete series is conceived by four different instruments and in the hands
of performers who approach each suite by means of a distinctive musicality, thus
placing back on the plucked string, the keyboard, the cello or the violin the ambiguity
and uncertainty of a repertoire that lacks any preexisting acceptance by the author or
the work, and one that makes everything possible. Here lies the point of departure of
our musical tradition: in the inevitable and necessary effort to render contemporary
the unity that Bach considered to be diverse.
Ral Zambrano
Translation: Yael Bitrn and Georg Leidenberger
include Yehudi Menuhin, Thomas Sanderling, Howard Shelley, Jorge Mester, Volker
Schmidt-Gertenbach, Enrique Btiz, Grzegorz Nowak, Hartout Fazlian, Eduardo
Snchez-Zuber, Horacio Franco, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Luis Herrera de la Fuente,
Jos Guadalupe Flores, Romn Revueltas, and Jess Medina.
www.raulzambrano.com
A L B E R T O C R U Z P R I E T O, piano
Mastering an eclectic and exceptional repertoire, Alberto Cruzprieto has presented numerous
recitals in the following countries: Mexico, Finland, Germany, Egypt, Ireland, Holland,
England, the United States, Canada, Poland, Belgium, Hungary, Columbia, Spain, El Salvador
and Austria. Among the most relevant events in which he has participated one finds: Mexico,
Splendor of Thirty Centuries in New York and San Antonio; the International Book Fair in
Frankfurt; the International Exposition of Seville; the Europalia Festival in Brussels; the
International Festival of the Piano in Bucaramanga, Colombia; Saison Musicale de Muse
de Larme en LHtel National Des Invalides, Festival Musiques Mtisses in Angoulme
and diverse festivals of World Music held in Nancy, Strasbourg, Poitiers, La Rochelle and
Massy, France. His discography consists of twenty-seven compact discs, among which stand
out: Bleu, Ponce and his contemporaries, Mexican Images for the Piano, Dco, Concert for
Piano and Wind Instruments by Stravinsky under direction of Eduardo Mata, Mexican Waltzes
1900, Archaic Songs with soprano Lourdes Ambriz and Gauguin, which received a nomination
to the Latin Grammy 2001. A noteworthy series of recordings are his musical sets of stories
told by Mario Ivn Martnez: Stories of Giants, Do you know Wolfie?, Tom Thumb], The Tin
Soldier, The Nightingale and the Rose and Ugly Duckling. He has formed part of the ensemble
Mexican Soloists, which was founded by the great Mexican conductor Eduardo Mata. Since
1984, he is also a member of the group Soloist of the Fine Arts Institute.