# Did Johann Sebastian Bach use guitar?



## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

There are some pieces from Johann Sebastian Bach. For example bwv 997 but I guess the original version was not played by guitar bach then. Today a same piece can be played with different music tools, so by thinking of it, did Johann Sebastian Bach ever use guitar or all the pieces of JS BACH that are played by guitar was played with a different music tool originally, is it just that today people play it with guitar? Some pieces of JS BACH sounds really good when it is played by guitar such as bwv 997. What do you say? I like bwv 997 better with guitar than lautenwerk.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

No, Bach didn't write music for the guitar. 
AFAIK what gets called his "lute music" wasn't originally written for the lute, either.

But yeah, Bach sounds good on guitar.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

There's some dispute as to what the actual instrument Bach's lute works were written for. Perhaps they were originally intended for theorbo, but Bach wasn't in full awareness of how to write the normal theorbo notation or lute tablature. Some say they were written for a 'lute-harpsichord,' a keyboard instrument built to imitate the sound of a lute (some harpsichords also have a lute stop that does this). It's very difficult to say what they were written for because the lute tablature manuscripts were all adapted by others (students, contemporaries of Bach etc.) and then _those_ were adapted for guitar. It gets very difficult to trace the history of BWV995 for example, which first existed as his C minor cello suite, and the original cello suite doesn't even exist in Bach's own hand!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I have come across some hitherto secret information that Bach preferred the Fender Stratocaster favored br Jimi Hendrix.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Bach wrote for the lute-harpsichord.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Bach wrote for the lute-harpsichord.


Well, no one can really say for sure.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

DaveM said:


> I have come across some hitherto secret information that Bach preferred the Fender Stratocaster favored br Jimi Hendrix.


True. But Bach played it right-handed. At least he did at The Brandenburg Music & Art Fair -- "An Antiquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music and 6 Concerti."


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