Prelude in E Major from BWV 1006a by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) – PDF Sheet Music Arranged for Classical Guitar. From ‘Lute’ Suite in E Major. Includes both a notation-only edition and a TAB edition. Left hand fingering only. PDF download. Performance comments. Level: Advanced.
My PDF Sheet Music Edition
The original work by Bach is Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 for solo violin with a further autographed arrangement known now as Suite in E major, BWV 1006a. It was likely arranged on lute- harpsichord (lautenwerk), an uncommon instrument, and so it became popularly known as a Lute Suite. Bach was familiar with lute players of the day such as Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750) and so it is not inconceivable that Bach could have imagined a lute performing the work. That said, in terms of performance difficulty and suitability, this is a keyboard work or at least unspecified instrumentation. I’ve created the free unfingered edition for advanced players to make their own editions or for students to read and listen. Students will also be interested in my fully fingered edition and tab edition.
An unfingered edition is also available upon request after purchase.
Video Lesson: Exploring the Left Hand Fingering
This is a video lesson exploring the left hand fingering. It is not intended as a tutorial, although it might accomplish that. It also doesn’t cover the vast array of musical information relevant to Bach. It is just an exploration of the fingering. One correction: Bar 114 last two notes should be D natural and open B. I’ve corrected this in the score. As mentioned, you should get your hands on as many editions of this work as possible, the Koonce is well worth it, even if I don’t like his fingerings they are still very good and worth your exploration: Bach Lute Suites (Koonce) – via Amazon, a standard, and it has facsimiles at the end.
Video Perfomances
Andrea González Caballero – Surprisingly similar to my edition, I found this after I made it so this is great to see because I was getting worried my were so different…Thanks for the great vid Andrea!
Rupert Boyd – A nice and musical performance, pretty straight forward fingerings and they work.
Alexander Milovanov – Some cool solutions to a few of the problems. Seems to work well.
Drew Henderson on 8 String – Yes!
Nigel North on Lute
