Don Chihuahua

Two Voices

BWV 996 is 'possibly' one of the suites we know Bach wrote for the lautenwerk - a harpsichord rather than a lute. Whatever the case, transposing from lute to guitar results in a substantial reinterpretation, because they are quite different instruments. What is clear about the Allemande, though, whatever instrument it is played on, is that it has two voices, which combine, separate, desist and return, cross over each other, and anticipate each other's transition from minor to major.

Segovia tuned his interpretation 5 semitones above the Em in which I have learnt it, and it would be nice to think that helps to make the separate voices clearer, though I suspect his technique - not to mention his enormous talent - has much more to do with it. In my interpretation there is somewhat more muddiness, and somewhat less clarity, which I can't blame on the key. That transposition does, however, alter the octave in which one of the final runs occurs (particularly the bass run of, in this case, the G up to the D#), making Am (in that case, C down to the G#) a more sensible key to play in. Maybe one day I'll try it.

Whose are the two voices? I played recently for the muse for whom the poem was written, and was asked what I thought of when I played. Impossible to answer that I thought of her. There is always an audience. There is no point in speaking, if not to someone - however imaginary - or even to oneself. If one voice is my own, is the other my imaginary friend, the Don? Is it the muse? Is it Bach? Are the two voices myself and the guitar? In any music interpreted from someone else's score, there are always two of us, since we require each other to complete the piece.

This is an exponentially proliferating polyphony of imagined voices, but there are only ever two halves of a whole, two hemispheres of one world, two people exchanging glances and gestures, censored as much by each other's conflicting pulls when they are alone, as they are by a third presence. I think that is what is in my mind when I play the Allemande from BWV 996 - and so grateful for that transition from minor to major.

Posted by: joe on: Thursday, 30 November, 2006 - 18:17 under: allemande, JS Bach, BWV 996, muse, voices, two, x,
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