Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo compositions for the lute, violin, cello and flute secundum Gustav Leonhardt (1928-2012)

As Skip Sempé recalls in the preface of the critical edition of Gustav Leonhardt’s harpsichord transcriptions of Bach’s compositions for the lute, violin, cello and flute, it was Johann Sebastian Bach himself who wrote the first keyboard transcriptions of his own music. Self-transcriptions, which were the composer’s way of meditating on his own opus, reveal some precious details regarding Bach’s approach to performance and composition. The text introduces Leonhardt's harpsichord transcriptions of selected Sonatas, Partitas, Suites and gives an interconnected large overview of procedures of transcription and reinterpretation developed by the great harpsichordist, died in 2012.