Ukulele Mozart

Too busy lately to do more than embed old YouTube videos, so here’s one from 2007:

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

The late great John King was the topic of our inaugural post; here’s a chance to compare John King’s version of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (played by Joshua Skaja) with arrangements of the same piece by Colin R Tribe,  by Valéry Sauvage, and by the Langley Ukulele Ensemble. 

 Joshua Skaja plays John King’s version

Colin R Tribe’plays his own version

Valéry Sauvage

The Langley Ukulele Ensemble

John King plays Bach

John King plays the Bouree from Bach’s Partita #3

When John King died in April 2009, his New York Times obituary explained that it was no great leap for him to come up with the idea of arranging Johann Sebastian Bach’s third Partita for the ukulele:

After attending Old Dominion University in Virginia, Mr. King became a guitar instructor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. He also worked in the campus bookstore.

He picked up a ukulele occasionally, but not successfully. Then he learned that the diminutive ancestors of today’s guitars were tuned like ukuleles. He tried Bach on the ukulele and was deeply intrigued. He soon commissioned Gioachino Giussani, the Italian luthier, to make a ukulele expressly for classical music. After a decade of practice, he put out a record, including the Bach partita, on his own label in 2001.

Pepe Romero concluded in the liner notes: “The sound of the ukulele is exquisitely well suited for Bach’s music, and I delight in this discovery.”

The whole Partita #3 is available on the CD “The Classical Ukulele,” John King’s label was Nalu Music.

Here’s another of John King’s performances of Bach, preserved on YouTube.

Prelude from Cello Suite #1