The Beijing-born guitarist Xuefei Yang has recorded her first album of baroque music, an all-Bach programme anchored by three concertos newly arranged for guitar and string quartet. 'Bach Concertos' is an exciting, innovative album in which she has transcribed for the guitar some of Bach’s familiar violin concertos and other works, hoping to establish these new arrangements as noteworthy repertoire for the guitar and to expand the concerto repertoire for that instrument.

Xuefei, whose international career finds her on the prestigious stages of the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Philharmonie (Berlin), Konzerthaus (Vienna) and Lincoln Center (New York), as well as in other major concert halls of Europe, North America and Asia, hopes that the new concerto arrangements will become established additions to the repertoire for her instrument. “In the baroque concerto repertoire”, she says, "we only really have Vivaldi Concertos, which are very light in nature. These Bach concertos would be a substantial and significant addition to the guitar repertoire and may create new opportunities to bring the instrument to a wider musical audience.”

Explaining the background to her latest recording, Xuefei said, “In Bach’s time, the modern guitar had not yet been invented but a close relative, the lute, was a popular instrument. Bach wrote quite a few works for solo lute and they have become core repertoire for guitarists. When I was playing the wonderful solo violin works by Bach, I wondered whether his concertos would work on the guitar too. So I found the scores and, to my delight, I found that they did!” The three concertos at the heart of the recording are those for Violin in A minor BWV 1041 and E Major BWV 1042 and for Harpsichord in D minor BWV 1052. Xuefei performs them with the Elias String Quartet.

“The music on this recording is so well known on the original instruments that it was always going to be a challenge to make the transcriptions sound convincing and stand on their own as good pieces of guitar music. So I followed the example set by Bach: when he transcribed violin pieces to lute or harpsichord, he made use of the sonorities and qualities of those instruments.” Xuefei, who decided to use a string quartet rather than an orchestra, as accompaniment to the concertos said “Bach’s concertos were probably played by a small group anyway, even one player per part. And I already had experience performing the Vivaldi [lute and mandolin] concertos with string quartet. … The Elias String Quartet are wonderful musicians as individuals and also as an ensemble. We are in a way like a quintet. We talk about the music and the result is team work, like chamber music.”