Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat major BWV 998 (c.1735)

Although Bach owned a lute, he also had house-space alongside his five harpsichords for two examples of the lute-harpsichord – the last being a keyboard instrument with a lute-like sound, which he had had some part in developing and which, at least for his own use, he seemd to prefer to the lute itself. Most of his seven surviving works for lute are easier to play on the lute-harpsichord and might well have been scored for it. That probably applies to the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E flat even if, as is believed, it was written for the Dresden Court lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, since he also owned a lute-harpsichord. However that might be, the three movements are accessible – though in D rather than E flat – to guitarists. On this occasion it will be played in a guitar arrangement in D but with a capo on the first fret which raises the pitch by a semitone and, in effect, restores it to the original key.