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572740 bk Bach_572740 bk Bach 28/11/2011 13:05 Page 4 Graham Anthony Devine Graham Anthony Devine was born in England and began his musical studies at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, studying the guitar with Gordon Crosskey. He moved to Brazil when he was nineteen and became an established teacher and performer Johann Sebastian there, giving many recitals and master-classes throughout South America. In April 2002 he won first prize at the Alhambra International Guitar Competition held in Alcoy, Spain, repeating this BACH success one month later at the Emilio Pujol International Guitar Competition in Italy. He is the only English guitarist to win either of these competitions. He records for Naxos and his 2005 Naxos release, British Guitar Music (8.557040), was chosen as disc of the week on America’s NPR radio station. He has also made two CDs for the British- Guitar based label GGR. Currently in much demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist and international competition jury member, he has given master- Transcriptions classes at festivals and musical institutes throughout the world. His wide repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to most major twentieth-century works written for the guitar, including rarely performed Cello Suite No. 4 masterpieces such as Maurice Ohana’s compositions for ten-string guitar (8.570948). Graham Devine currently teaches guitar at Trinity Violin Partita No. 2 College of Music in London. Chorale Preludes Graham Anthony Devine 8.572740 4 572740 bk Bach_572740 bk Bach 28/11/2011 13:05 Page 2 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) cantata for the fourth Sunday after Trinity. Jesu, Joy of inspiration, reinforced by embellishment. The atmosphere Guitar Transcriptions Man’s Desiring was the title given to a popular transcription of the piece is profoundly serious, expressing the emotional for piano solo by the English pianist, Myra Hess (1890- heart of the four primary dance forms preceding the The tradition of performing J.S. Bach’s music on the guitar In terms of the guitar, it was the composer and editor, 1965), published in 1926, of the chorale that ends each part Chaconne. With no intervening Bourrée or Minuet, the goes back to the nineteenth century transcriptions by John W. Duarte (1919-2004), who in the late 1950s first of Cantata BWV 147 ‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’ transition to the stately but lively Gigue almost takes the Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909). From the early days of his became interested in arranging the Cello Suites for (Heart and Mouth and Deeds and Life). The original scoring listener by surprise. But this Gigue, in twelve-eight time, a long career Andrés Segovia (1909-1987) relished performance by the young John Williams. Previously of the work was for voices with trumpet, oboes, strings, and rhythmic amalgamation of opening triplets and fluent Tárrega’s arrangements while at the same time choosing Andrés Segovia had transcribed only a few individual continuo. One of the first guitar transcriptions of the piece semiquavers, is neither boisterous nor especially close to further Bach pieces to play in recitals, including the famous movements such as the Prelude from the first Cello Suite, was by the American musician, Rick Foster, made popular the dance. Rather it is a brilliant instrumental vehicle for a Chaconne. BWV 1007. Since then many guitarists have been by Christopher Parkening, a Segovia protégé, who display of gentle virtuosity in its structural role as a mediator Subsequent generations of guitarists extended their fascinated by these compositions and performed them in included Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring on a long-playing between the four dances of the suite and the mighty horizons even wider. Thus performers of the middle and recitals. record dedicated to the music of J.S. Bach released in Chaconne finale. late twentieth century brought into recitals the so-called lute Suite No. 4 begins with an extended Prelude, a 1971. Rick Foster commented at the time: ‘Of course, in Among Bach’s suites the Chaconne is the longest suites as well as guitar versions of violin and cello suites, remarkable exploration of style brisé or ‘broken chords’, any effort to arrange music which was originally intended individual movement, creating an effect of monumental lute-harpsichord compositions, keyboard partitas, and so akin to the textures of baroque lute preludes. But after bar for an entire choir with accompaniment, enormous proportions. The hugely acclaimed Chaconne in D minor, a on. The result is a veritable cornucopia to be interpreted by 49 the even flow of chordal patterns is interrupted several technical problems are inevitable, but the rewards of combination of a long chain of intricate variations of great plucked strings and nowadays the music of J.S. Bach is an times by rapid scale passages, the latter ending the overcoming them are worth all the effort. The fullness intensity and variety, has fascinated the world’s leading integral part of every dedicated guitarist’s programme. movement in a brilliant cascade. The Allemande, with its achieved on the guitar is quite amazing and comes as instrumentalists since the early nineteeth century, among J.S. Bach’s ‘Eighteen’ Chorale Preludes are contained subtle combinations of semiquavers and quavers, is one of close, I believe, as any solo instrument can come to them many who were not violinists. Thus there have been a in a manuscript collection prepared in Leipzig in the 1740s the most complex treatments of this form within the Cello reproducing the spirit and beauty of the piece.’ number of distinguished arrangements over the years covering the organ chorales BWV 651-668. Nun komm’ der Suites, the mixture of note values being continued The Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, follows including those for piano, orchestra, and guitar, the most Heiden Heiland (Come now, Saviour of the Heathen), BWV immediately after in the sophisticated intricacies of the the traditional grouping of dance movements, concluding significant original performance for the latter being a feature 659, is believed to have been first performed in the Weimar Courante. In the latter the unexpected introduction of with a Chaconne. The five dances are linked harmonically of Segovia’s epic Paris recital in 1935. Many of Bach’s court chapel on Advent Sunday, 2nd December, 1714. The triplets alongside quaver values and semiquavers gives this in that each begins with a progression of harmonies whose predecessors, such as Buxtehude, Muffat, Schenk, and text is taken from Luther’s Advent hymn. Though Bach dance vivid rhythmic dynamism and a degree of basses consist of the notes D – C sharp – D – B flat – A, Biber, wrote excellent Chaconnes (or Ciacconas). As the made several settings of this chorale, the organ version, unpredictability in its characteristic patterns. The chordal emphasising the essential cohesion of the suite. Bach scholar, David Ledbetter observed: ‘Virtually every BWV 659, from which the arrangement is taken, begins nature of the Sarabande is well suited to the guitar, and the The Allemande serves the purpose of a prelude, detail of [Bach’s] Ciaccona has antecedents in the rich with a three-part contrapuntal accompaniment where the aria-like qualities of this particular piece have been introducing us to the mood of the suite through what the brew of overlapping traditions that constituted Bach’s glorious melody is introduced in the fourth bar. In compared to those written in the galant style by the great Dutch violinist, Jaap Schröder, has described as ‘linear musical environment. His contribution was to bring them expressing the essence of the chorale in terms of plucked baroque lutenist, Sylvius Leopold Weiss. Its elegant dignity polyphony’ involving harmonies implied through a together into an all-encompassing unity that undergirded a strings, such a transcription brings new perspectives to contrasts keenly with the skittish Bourrée I where upbeat succession of broken chords. Within the flow of new, large-scale expressive power.’ bear on the interpretation, lending a special poignancy to semiquaver runs provide a rhythmic impetus unique of its semiquavers are a number of rhythmic shifts including Finally the aria Bist du bei mir, BWV 508, from the one of Bach’s most well-known works. kind. Bourrée II reverts to the peasant simplicity of the dotted quavers, triplets and little bursts of Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach, is presented in an The Six Suites for Violoncello Solo, BWV 1007-1012, dance, this movement being notably brief before the return demisemiquavers. The second movement, Courante, fast arrangement for solo guitar. Formerly attributed to J.S. were composed during Bach’s time as Kapellmeister at of its companion. The final vivacity of the Gigue, in twelve- in comparison to the Allemande’s slow pace, is an ebullient Bach, it is now thought that this aria was first heard in Cöthen between 1717 and 1723. These suites were eight time, is rendered in ebullient triplets possessing an work, flowing with energy communicated through triplets Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel’s opera Diomedes, oder die neglected for many decades after Bach’s death until the element of humour as well as an implicit reminder of the and vivacious dotted rhythms. On the guitar this movement triumphierende Unschuld (Diomedes, or the Triumph of great cellist, Pablo Casals, re-discovered them. He intricate footwork if such a piece were ever to be danced to. achieves a lute-like delicacy of precise articulation and Innocence), performed in Bayreuth on 16th November, described in his autobiography how from these suites ‘a Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (I cry to thee, Lord hints of gaiety, a mixture of hopping and running between 1718. The opening words of the song are as follows: ‘If you whole radiance of space and poetry pours forth’ and how Jesus Christ), BWV 639, is from the Orgel-Büchlein (Little the syncopated dotted notes and the free current of the are with me, then I will go with joy to my death and my rest’.

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