Six Suites for Viola Solo: Suites for Viola Bach

New revised version 2021Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Adaptation for viola, edited and transcribed by Roisber Narvaez.Throughout history, numerous musicians have had discrepancies between bowings, articulation, notation, and phrasing in the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Suites for Violoncello solo BWV 1007-1012, composed around 1720. It is fairly certain that the Suites were intended to form one part of a larger collection or complex, the first fragment of which is the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin solo BWV 1001-1006, dated 1720 by Bach's own hand. The absence of an autograph copy by the composer does not allow us to have a precise answer as to how the work should be accurately interpreted, caused by the unevenness between the four existing manuscripts: a copy made by his wife Anna Magdalena between 1727 and 1731, a copy prepared by Johann Peter Kellner in 1726, a copy made by two anonymous persons written in the mid-18th century and an anonymous copy from the end of the 18th century.This has given performers the opportunity to contribute musical ideas about the Suites.This version presented for viola, however, is based on the manuscript of Anna Magdalena Bach, even though, in that copy, the bowings are quite inaccurate and force the editor to make complicated choices, nevertheless, we use as source material the other three existing sources, although there are marked inequalities between bowings, articulation, and notation, resulting in very different phrasing when the Suites are performed, it is possible that they reflect the performance practice of Bach's time and the 18th century, and are always an important point of comparison before making any decisions about the musical text. We are aware that the choice of any other secondary source runs the risk of conveying things that bear no relation to Bach's original intentions. But this does not exclude the possibilitythat perhaps Bach himself tolerated and accepted the performance instructions conveyed in the other sources, but the proof of this assertion has yet to be demonstrated.We have added in the appendix the adapted 6 Suite in G major as an alternative part to the original key, thus allowing performing it in a lower musical tessitura.Our Roisber Narvaez Verlag book consists of a fairly faithful reproduction of Anna Magdalena's copy and we have marked the publisher's suggestions in grey, so that viola players may establish their own opinion on the many discrepancies with the other three existing sources. Read more