Welssfor Guitar

Ten arrangements by

Peter Batchelar & Richard Wright

The Associated Board ofthe Royal Schools of Music

Introduction

L. Prelude

2. Menuet

3. Gavotte

4. Menuet

5. Rondeau

6. Sarabande

7. Bourr6e

8. Paysane

9. Courante

10. Giga

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O 2008 byTheAssociated Board of the Royal Schools of Music

Cover design by Datrlia Designs, rext serting by Adam Hay Studio.Music origination by Andrew Jones.Printed in England by Caligraving Ltd,Thetford, Norfolk.

Introduction

Silvius Leopold Weiss was born in Grottkau (now Grodk6w),Silesia in 1687. He started plryrt g the lute at a young age andtook lessons from his father. In r7ro, like Handel and manyother German musicians, he travelled to Italy, where hespent four years in Rome in the service of the Polish PrinceAlexander Sobieski. The prince's mother, Maria Casimira,who also held court in Rome, engaged Alessandro Scarlattiand then (in r7o9) his son Domenico as her composer andmusic director. Wbiss played continuo in operas and wouldcertainly have worked with the Scarlattis and heard the musicof Corelli and Vivaldi. On the death of Prince Sobieski inr7r4, Weiss returned to Germany, taking a position in Kassel.

In r7r8 he was appointed to the court of the Ki.g ofPolandand Elector of Saxony in Dresden, where he became thehighest paid instrumentalist. He held this post until his deathin r75o. In r7r8, also, he gave aseries ofweekly concerts inLondon and even played for King George I, but in ryzzsuffered a career-threatening injury when a French violinistcalled Petit tried to bite offthe tip of his right thumb. Hehad rr children, ofwhom 7 survived him.

As a musician,'Weiss enjoyed a similar status toJ. S. Bach:

they were almost the same age, they were renownedimprovisers and unrivalled masters oflute and keyboardrespectively, and they were exemplary composers for theirinstruments. Weiss visited Bach in 1739, in Leipzig, thoughthe rwo probably met earlier during one ofBacht manyvisitsto his son'Wilhelm Friedemann, another employee oftheDresden court. According to an anonymous contemporary

account of one of their meetings, 'whoever knows thedifficulty ofplaying harmonic modulations and goodcounterpoint on the lute will be astounded and scarcely

believe when eyewitnesses assure us that the great Dresdenlutenist Weiss competed in playing fantasias and fugues withSebastian Bach'. Bach too must have admired'Weiss's abfitiessince he arranged his suite No. 47 as a duo for violin andharpsichord (BWV 1025).

'Weiss stands alongside Francesco da Milano andJohn

Dowland - the two outstanding figures of the Renaissance

lute - as one of the greatest players of all time. Ernst GottliebBaron, a younger contemporary of 'Weiss, describes the''Weissian method' ofplaying with reference to the composer's

masterly fingerings and abiliry to play a cantabile line above

a clearly defined bass. In about rTrTWeiss was responsiblefor the addition of wrro effra pairs of bass stringp, making13 in all, and around ry32 he had the bass strings mountedonto a second peg-box, which gave the bass extra powerand resonance.

Despite constituting the largest body ofwork in the lute's

history the music of Weiss is only today being afforded its

true status. Had it not been written for what became an

obsolete instrument, it would surely have achieved this status

much sooner. Like Bacht music, it is a rypically Germansynthesis of rTth-century French and ltalian influences. TheFrench elements are primarily the dance forms, unbarredpreludes and certain motifs, while the Italian influences(occurring more in later compositions) are the strong

harmonic progressions, robust architecture, sequences anddriving rhythms.Though not as intricately contrapuntal as

Bach's, the music is nevertheless harmonicdly sophisticated,involving skilful modulation to remote keys, particurarly inthe late works.

The present collectionThe majority of Weiss's 85o or so surviving works are insix-movement suites (or suonaten as he called them), themost cornmon sequence being allemande, courante, bourr6e,sarabande, menuet and gigue. This collection includes anexample ofeach movemenr-type with the exception ofanallemande, and the pieces are presented in approximateorder of technical difficulry.

Many of the suites open with a prelude or fantasia, whichwould originally have been improvised.'when wrinen down,this was deliberately left unbarred. To suggesr flexibilirywithin the tempo, therefore, the present prelude carries a

range of metronome marks.The S-C (Smith-Crawford) numbers under the individuat

titles reGr to suite and movement respectively. This cataloguesystem was developed for D. A. Smith, ed., Siluius bopotdweiss: siimtliche werkefur laute in Thbul"atur und (Jbertrdgung

[Complete works forlute in tablarure and transcription],vols. i-iv (Frankfurt, r983-9o); and T Crawford, ed., ibid.,vols. v-x (Kassel, zoo3-). The rwo parts to this completeedition represent the so-called London and Dresden

manuscripts held at the British Library and SlchsischeLandesbibliothek respectively. Of the present pieces, eightare among the early and middle period works forming theLondon manuscript, and two - the prelude and paysane -are among the Dresden manuscriptt later works. In thecourse of arranging these pieces, seven were transposed.The original keys are: Menuet, D minor; Gavotte, D minor;Menuet, D major; Rondeau, C minor; Bourr6e, Bb major;Paysane, A minor; and Courante, F minor.

The ornaments signs are the stave-notation equivarents ofsymbols found in Baroque lute tablature. The most commonofthese were the ) , an ornament starting on the uppernote; and the \./ , one that starts on the lower note. Thesewere played as either an appoggiatura or, depending on thecontext, a trill. Both rypes occur in bar 2 of the Sarabande,for example, while in bar 4 the upper-note sign has beeninterpreted as a trill. tn the case of appoggiaruras, the smallnotes subtract their value from the note they precede -in other words, they should be played according to theirwritten value. A solid slur indicates both notes are to beplayed with the right hand; a dashed line means a left-handslur is intended. The'crushed' grace-note, as found in theBourr6e and Paysane, is played simultaneously on theadjacent string to its main note, to create an expressivedissonance.

Peter Batchelar & Richard Wright,2008

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