Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 on Guitar

Many years ago when I was studying with José Tomás in Alicante, Spain, I brought in a new piece I wanted to play. I wasn't quite ready, technically, to launch into one of the lute suites so I had started on the Cello Suite No. 1 by Bach in the arrangement by John Duarte. The original suite is in G major and mostly lies in the baritone range. Duarte had arranged it in D major, up a fifth, and to make up for the higher tessitura had added a bass line. In the same series he had also arranged the Cello Suite No. 3, originally in C major, up a sixth to A major.

I don't recall exactly, but I think I played the prelude for Maestro Tomás. He looked over the music briefly, then dug out a copy of the original cello suites and picking up his guitar read through the prelude in the original key. It sounded very rich and resonant in comparison. Now how could he do that? Tomás is well known for being the main advocate of the 8-string guitar which is the normal 6-string but with two additional bass strings. He adopted it to be able to play the lute suites of S. L. Weiss with the original bass notes, though it is also very useful in playing the later Renaissance lute music such as that by John Dowland as well. His two lower strings were usually tuned to D and C so he could easily play the Cello Suite as the lowest string on the cello is also a C.

When he came to the end of the prelude Tomás suggested that, since I had a 6-string I might try transcribing it in A major and tuning the sixth to D, a common scordatura. Somewhat chastened I went away and learned a different piece, but years later I set out to try the idea and transcribed the whole suite in A. After learning it, I found quite a few passages lay rather awkwardly where they did not in D major. As I had been playing a lot of lute music tuning the third string in F# I tried that and it worked perfectly. What that actually does is move the interval spacing of the strings down a 4th so the left hand fingering is much like it is in D major. But now I had a piece with the rather unusual scordatura of both sixth in D and third in F#, something unique in my experience. But never mind, it works perfectly so that is the key I play the suite in and I even published my transcription in a book of Bach.

When I played it for Oscar Ghiglia in Banff he was at first scornful, mainly I think because Segovia plays it in D major, but came round after a while and offered some excellent suggestions for an improvement to the gigue.

Everyone else is still playing it in D major which, to my ear, sounds feeble compared to the richer resonance of the cello key.

But now, someone is finally playing the Cello Suite No. 1 by Bach in the right key on guitar! This is Waldemar Kerner playing the suite, originally in G major, in A major. 

Two things I don't like about this version is the added bass lines (not in the prelude, but in later movements) which seem un-Bachian and arbitrary and the lack of slurs. One of the reasons I went to the F# tuning is that it facilitates slurs in the appropriate places. Here is my transcription of the prelude: