Bach Prelude For Lute in C Minor BWV 999: For Cello Duo or Cello/Bass Duo
This beautiful Prelude is perfectly written for a plucked, multistring instrument like the lute or guitar but poses several difficulties when played on a single, 4-stringed cello. The huge pitch range and the constant arpeggio intervals mean that both of our hands are leaping around constantly and with all this wild activity, this deeply spiritual music can start to feel like a Paganini Caprice (albeit a slow one).
One way to minimise these difficulties is to play it on an instrument with a higher string (or strings), such as a violoncello piccolo or a viola da gamba. For those of us who don’t have access to either of these instruments, however, probably the most practical solution would be to play it as a cello duo in which one cellist plays the high voice and the other stays with the lowest harmony notes.
In this cellofun.eu cello duo version, the key has been lowered a wholetone from the original C Minor to Bb Minor. It might seem completely crazy to choose a key with five flats, but in this new key, we can now use the pedal open C-string from bars 17-32, which gives this important pedal note a very powerful resonance. Apart from when we are using our open C-string, this “strange” key also gives us a darker colour, very appropriate for the sombre minor key.
If played on a solo, bowed instrument, this Prelude will probably need to be played slowly, but in the duo version we could also play it fast if we wish.
For an easier version of this piece, in which the highest note is only a “G” on the A-string in the Neck Region, we will need to lower the key down another minor third into G minor. Now, however, many notes in the second cello part lie beneath the open C-string (out of range for a normally-tuned cello). Rather than retuning the cello C-string down a minor third and then rewriting the part with scordatura notation/fingerings, it is much easier to simply give this bass line now to a doublebass. This key lies very well for the bass, with many of the important notes, including the 15 bars with a pedal “A”, coinciding with the open strings.
Here are the Engraving Files (XML) for both duo versions:
Many thanks to Chuck Epstein, whose curiosity, interest and love of the piece inspired these duo transcriptions.