J.S. Bach: New Transcriptions For Guitar

Originally released in 1993, Philip Hii's project was a critic's favorite, despite its limited availability. Mr. Hii's rendering of Bach's masterworks on this recording reveal that his talent as an expressive performer equals his enormous gift for transcription.

LINER NOTES

The seeds for this CD were first planted during one of my occasional forays into music research.

As usual, my inquiry came from a personal need…How does one adapt some of Bach’s more problematical movements from his lute repertoire for the guitar? In particular, I was concerned with the Suite in E minor, especially the gigue. If there is any one strong argument against the lute as the intended instrument for this suite, it as to be this gigue with its dense three-part counterpoint. It is ironic that Bach would write such an idiomatic lute gigue for the first keyboard Partita and such a “keyboardish” gigue for the lute in this suite. The common solution of adapting such problematic movements by retaining most of the part-writing and performing them at rather leisurely tempos has always seemed less than satisfactory to me.

So I posed a hypothetical question…What would Bach have done if he had written the suite for the guitar in the first place? Would he have taken into account such mundane details as the practicality of performing the work up to tempo, or is it true, as some would have it, that since Bach’s dance suites are so stylized, tempo should not be a great concern?

My inquiry led me to a comparative analysis of one of Bach’s violin sonatas and his subsequent arrangement of the work for keyboard. In the course of my analysis, it became quite obvious that, yes, the complexity of Bach’s textures in his unaccompanied string works is determined in large part by the given tempo of a passage or movement. Slower movements tend to be fuller while faster allegro-type movements are usually monophonic. In other words the quicker the tempo, the simpler the texture and vice versa. What seems most interesting, however, is that these seemingly monophonic passages and movements are much more than they appear to be.

As I plodded on, it soon became obvious to me that the long uninterrupted lines of notes in these movements are really contrapuntal textures that have been compacted for practical purposes, i.e. to facilitate performance. In other words, these “melodies” are, in effect, linear composites of different melodic strands and bass lines, meshed together by a primitive notation system, one which odes not indicate part-writing.

This discovery marked a turning point in my approach to transcribing Bach for the guitar.

However, it was the second encounter in my research, and article on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor in Early Music by Peter Williams, which precipitated the decision to undertake the transcriptions in this compilation. The basic premise of the article is that, based on the unusual organ writing in the work, the well known Toccata and Fugue in D minor is probably a violin solo work later transcribed for organ. The thought was an intriguing one and led me to my first effort at adapting it for guitar.

Encouraged by the results, I turned to another equally formidable work, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. Like the Toccata, the Fantasy has always seemed to be an ideal candidate for transcription. It was the Fugue which had deterred me. But as it turned out, except for a few modulations to some un-guitaristic keys, the work was readily adaptable to the guitar.

The project grew. I found an obscure violin sonata which seemed to be written with the guitar in mind and not just because of the key of E minor.

The two Chorale Preludes are perhaps best known to audiences in the Busoni piano versions. For my transcriptions, I went back to the original organ versions.

The problem with recordings is that once committed to a tape, a particular interpretation becomes etched in stone, so to speak. Being keenly aware of this fact, I have tried to perform each piece with as much objectivity as possible. Nevertheless, an interpretation is only an account of a particular moment in time. It is not uncommon, after a recording session is over, to come up with ten other possible interpretations, all of which may be perfectly valid. And so I offer this recording; six accounts of three evenings, in December 1992.Special thanks to: Del Mar College, especially the Board of Regents for their support of the Arts; to lee Gwodze for his ideas on the Toccata and Fugue; to Patty Scogin for proofreading the notes; to john Strother for the sound; and last but not least, to Dean and Kalonica at GSP for putting this new improved version together.