Jorge Caballero belongs to a small group of guitarists who have expanded what the instrument is understood to be capable of. The Peruvian-born guitarist won the Guitar Foundation of America competition at nineteen and later became the first guitarist to win the Naumburg Award — a prize previously reserved for pianists, singers and string players. He is known for transcriptions of a scale most players do not attempt, including Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition on solo guitar. You can read more in our artist profile of Jorge Caballero.
Here he plays the Allemande from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita in A minor, BWV 1013, on a 2013 Andrea Tacchi guitar.
About the Allemande from BWV 1013
BWV 1013 is Bach's Partita for solo flute — one of the very few works he wrote for an unaccompanied wind instrument, and a piece that has fascinated and troubled players since it was rediscovered. The opening Allemande is its most famous movement, and its reputation rests on a single audacious idea: a continuous line of sixteenth notes that runs from the first bar to the last without a single rest.
For a flautist that is a physical problem — the music leaves almost nowhere to breathe. On the guitar the problem inverts. Breath is no longer the obstacle, but sustain is: the guitarist must make a plucked, decaying instrument sound like an unbroken melodic line, and must shape phrases that Bach never marked. Every player has to decide where the line lifts, where harmony is implied by a held bass, and how a single voice can suggest the full harmony underneath it. It is one of the purest tests of musical thinking in the Bach repertoire.
Bach's solo works for violin, cello and flute have become central to the guitar precisely because of this challenge. Our article on Bach on the classical guitar examines what transcription really involves, and our Bach repertoire guide maps the essential works — from the Chaconne to the Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude.
The Guitar: Andrea Tacchi, 2013
Andrea Tacchi is among the most respected living Italian luthiers. Working in Florence since the 1970s, he is known for instruments of unusual refinement — including his Coclea models — and for a builder's curiosity that has led him to study the great makers of the past closely. The 2013 cedar-top Coclea heard here gives Caballero the evenness and sustain that a single unbroken Bach line demands. It is available in our shop.
Watch the Performance
For more of the baroque repertoire on six strings, browse our overview of famous classical guitar pieces.
