Lute Suite in G minor, BWV 995

Bach's Lute Suite BWV 995, composed c. 1727–1731 and surviving in an autograph manuscript dedicated to a 'Monsieur Schouster', is a transcription of the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor BWV 1011 transposed to G minor and reworked for the lute. The suite's seven movements — Prélude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavottes I and II, and Gigue — form one of the longest and most complex of Bach's lute works, and the guitar transcription (by Miguel Llobet, Andrés Segovia, and many others since) has become one of the most important works in the instrument's repertoire. The Prélude, with its sweeping arpeggiated introduction and fugal section, is among the most magnificent of Bach's instrumental preludes; the Sarabande is one of the great slow movements in Western music, its simple chordal writing shot through with deeply personal expressivity. The suite tests the guitarist's command of polyphonic textures and long-range harmonic thinking.