Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonaten & Partiten BWV 1001-1006 für Gitarre

The highlights of the violin repertoire, Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, have always fascinated performers and music lovers through their architectural perfection, their spiritual content and the breadth of their emotional palette. It is therefore hardly surprising that they, like so many of Bach's works, have been repeatedly arranged for other instruments. On a purely practical level, there are elements in the writing of these arrangements that seem to fit particularly well with the guitar, with its polyphony, dynamics and palette of tonal colours. Following his transcription for guitar of Bach's four lute suites (BIS-2285), which BBC Music Magazine described as "a remarkable combination of technical ease, musical understanding and emotional directness", Franz Halász now offers us his own arrangements of the sonatas and partitas - fresh performances that combine historically informed practice with modern technique. Halász is heard on a series of acclaimed CDs for BIS, with a broad repertoire ranging from Spanish Baroque music to contemporary works by Takemitsu and Gubaidulina, tango and Brazilian music.