Guidelines for Transcribing Baroque Lute Music for the Modern Guitar, Using Silvius Leopold Weiss's Sonata

Abstract

"Guidelines for Transcribing Baroque Lute Music for the Modern Guitar, Using Silvius Leopold Weiss's Sonata 36 (from the Dresden Manuscript) as a Model" analyzes the process of creating guitar transcriptions of Weiss's music. The methodology unfolds through three steps: 1) rendering the tablature into modern guitar notation, 2) analyses of stylistic issues for the definition of fingerings on the guitar, and 3) two categories of ornamental practices—essential embellishments and diminutions. In addition, the study includes a discussion about an alternative tuning and presents a suggested prelude for Sonata 36 from the Dresden manuscript. The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to create a new guitar transcription of a sonata by Weiss, analyzing the challenges inherent in this process, and second, to train intermediate and advanced guitar students to develop their own original transcriptions following the model presented in this study.