Johann Paul von Westhoff : Suite in C Major transcribed and arranged for guitar by Alan Grundy : Bergmann

Johann Paul von Westhoff: transcribed and arranged for guitar by Alan Grundy

Bergmann: 16 pages

The story about Johann Paul von Westhoff is a fascinating one. His dates (1656 – 1705) give away the fact that he was a Baroque composer who predated Bach, and if i tell you that this work was originally Suite No4 from Six Suites for violin solo, originally published in1696 (thus predating Bach’s violin works) , you will understand why this is an intriguing new publication , having been made available for guitar by Alan Grundy. A copy of the composer’s original score is produced at the back of the book, which is in itself a surprising read, because the composer used a very strange way of notating his music, certainly not on our 5 line stave that we use nowadays.

Set in the standard 4 movements of Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue the work immediately does not sound like Bach, far from it, but nevertheless it has its own charm, and with Grundy’s work on it, it plays absolutely fine on our guitar, although as he states in his preface, he didn’t have to do too much to it at all, to make it perfectly playable.

The Allemande is in 4/4 and set largely in two or three voices, whilst the Courante (in 3/2) is almost completely in just 2 .The Sarabande is set in 3/2 time and is much more chord based whilst the final Gigue is set in 6/2! (A time signature I have never seen before in my 62 years of playing the guitar!) This makes it rather hard to read at first owing to the often very large note values!

Otherwise this is a fine 4- movement suite. The music is pleasant, not too demanding, and has a Baroque charm all of its own, even if it doesn’t have the complexity and emotional content of the Bach suites. Worth looking at!

Chris Dumigan