Grundy, The Court Guitarist

The Court Guitarist by Alan Grundy

A Suite in E-minor in baroque style for solo guitar.

This work was inspired by the meeting between Johann Sebastian Bach and Sylvius Leopold Weiss in the summer of 1739. Both these musicians were foremost in their respective careers at this time, Bach as cantor at St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig and Weiss as lutenist at the Dresden Court. It is very likely that Bach and Weiss already knew each other by this time, however Bach’s eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann (1710 – 1784) who was organist at St. Sophia's Church in Dresden had become well acquainted with Weiss. It is said that this meeting was organised by him so he and Weiss travelled the 80 odd kilometres from Dresden to Leipzig and stayed there for an entire month. It was reported that during this time “something extra fine in the way of music took place”

As guitarists we greatly admire the two Baroque masters, Bach and Weiss, for their genius and their contribution to the guitar’s repertoire. Although neither wrote for our instrument directly we borrow from their compositions for lute, cello and violin. Therefore, since the guitar as we know it today was not in existence at that time, the Baroque repertoire we perform consists entirely of transcriptions and arrangements. However, I’m sure we would all agree that the modern guitar is a suitable medium for the realisation of much of this music and if it had been available to musicians such as Bach and Weiss, I’m sure they would have written for it.

Andres Segovia’s love of this style prompted him to ask the Mexican composer Manuel Ponce to write pieces in a Baroque style for him to perform in concert. This resulted in a number of very successful compositions, which for a while, were attributed to Weiss and another composer Alesandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725), these pieces are still available today. In this present work I have tried to put myself ‘in the shoes’ of the aforementioned composers and write a work in a Baroque style which both sounds and feels natural to the guitar.

Alan Grundy 2023

• Product: PDF or Print on Demand
• Pages: 20 pages 
• Level: Intermediate
• Order number: BE-240109   
  
• ISMN 979-0-706836-63-8