Prelude BWV 999 for guitar

About this work

Prelude BWV 999 is built from broken chords that change almost without interruption. On the guitar, the danger is to play them as a sequence of hand shapes. The music becomes clearer when the ear follows the bass and the common notes that carry one harmony into the next.

Choose fingering for resonance, not only for immediate convenience. Some notes must survive a change of position; others may disappear so that the new harmony can breathe. A regular right hand supplies the framework, but it should not stress the beginning of every figure.

Practise harmonic progressions of two or three measures, then connect them without changing tempo. Cadences need a measured release rather than an automatic ritardando. Bring out the upper line as well: it gives direction and a distant horizon to the continuous stream of arpeggios.

What the document containsContents: Prelude BWV 999, transcribed in D minor for guitar across two pages, with a listening MIDI.The LilyPond source comes from Mutopia and is in the public domain. LesPartitions.info compared the pitches, checked the playback, and reviewed both pages.