CYCLE FOR LUTE BY J.S. BACH PRELUDE, FUGUE AND ALLEGRO ES-DUR: ARRANGEMENT FOR BANDURA

Abstract

The proposed study is devoted to the problems of arrangements of lute music for bandura by works of distant epochs, in particular, the Baroque. The work on arrangements, first of all, involves a thorough analysis of musical and expressive means, and thus the identification of the peculiarities of the musical language in the proposed work. The sequence of basic parameters that the author of an arrangement should rely on in the process of working on a work is presented. The dominant parameters in this process are the following: 1) to familiarize oneself with the history and circumstances of the work’s creation; 2) to listen to the original work and to penetrate its mood and artistic content; 3) to identify the peculiarities of form, types of presentation, etc.; 4) depending on the era, to pay attention to the dominant expressive means (melody, timbre, dynamics, agogic, rhythm, etc.); 5) using the timbre and expressive features of the instrument to which the arrangement is made (in this case, the bandura), create a work as close to the original as possible. An attempt is made to outline the peculiarities of arrangements from a rarely used instrument today – the lute – for another stringed instrument – the bandura – on the example of Bach’s cyclical work Prelude, Fugue and Allegro for lute BWV 998. The Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro is a work in which we can observe a combination of homophonic-harmonic and polyphonic methods of presentation, which corresponds to the stylistic principles of the Baroque. It is noted that the process of transposition has demonstrated common and distinctive parameters when addressing parts of the cycle with different types of presentation.