Bach
One might have expected Bach's cello compositions to exploit the possibilities of sustain provided by the bow technique, yet his cello works are mostly very busy with semiquaver runs and arpeggios. This transfers well to the lute, and indeed Bach's fifth cello suite exists in a version for lute as well. It is quite possible that the lute version came first - my own belief is that it is a homage to the great lute contemporary and sometime friend of Bach, Sylvius Leopold Weiss, especially the 'one-voice' fugue at which Weiss allegedly excelled in improvising.
The other cello suites transfer well to the lute. My arrangement of the 2nd suite transfers the original from Dm to Gm. Most lute arrangements - at least the ones I have seen and heard - are in Am, but I think the darker tone of Gm reflects better the somber character of the original. I spent many hours adding a bass line, then many more hours taking it out. Every time I added a note, something was lost. Eventually I settled for the absolute minimum of support, only a handful of notes in the entire suite, allowing Bach's implied harmony and counterpoint to speak for itself. Here is a pdf of the score in French tab.
I recorded the suite in one take, but have split the recording into two parts for ease of download. I could have supplied individual files for each movement, but I wanted to further the sense of a performance of the suite as whole entity, rather than a collection of unrelated dances in the same key.
The recording: 11c lute by Martin Shepherd. Recording date: 18 April, 2008. Strings: Aquila - Nylgut trebles, Nylgut-wound D-type basses. I plan to record the suite again in the future with the lute entirely strung in gut.
Robert de Visée wrote some beautiful music for the lute. The Tombeau de Du But is one of his finest compositions. The Tombeau de Mouton, somewhat unusually, has the 11th course tuned down to B. The Tombeau - a slow and mournful Allemande - was created by lute players to mark the death of one of their own. Both Du But and Mouton were very famous lute player-composers of the 17th Century.
The recording: 11c lute by Martin Shepherd. Recording date: 12 February (Du But) and 29 April (Mouton), 2008. Strings: Aquila - Nylgut trebles, Nylgut-wound D-type basses.