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Suites for Solo Cello BWV 1007-1012
General Discussions - Part 3 |
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Continue from Part 2 |
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Chamber Music: Six Solo Cello Suites: Varied Perspectives |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (October 31, 2019):
More than any of the other collections of chamber music, Bach's Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012, have stirred the interest and imagination of musicians, musicologists, and the public.1 The established dance forms — allemande, courante, sarabande, galanterie (minuet-bourrée-gavotte, and gigue; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galanterie) with an introductory prelude — were composed for the little-regarded violoncello which otherwise played the basso continuo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figured_bass) as accompaniment in both small ensembles (trio, quartet, quintet) and in orchestras. Bach took the large but musically-diminutive cello (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello) and placed it in the spotlight as a solo instrument in its second use before other composers such as Luigi Boccherini composed extensively for it in concertos and quintets with orchestra (1743-1805, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Boccherini). Bach's purpose was to show the idiomatic qualities of the cello and well as the violin while he was the Capellmeister at Cöthen about 1720. The court orchestra had two fine cellists in Christian Ferdinand Abel (1682-1761, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Ferdinand_Abel) and Carl Bernhard Lienicke, the latter for whom Bach may have composed the cello suites, says Robert L. Marshall.2
Another characteristic of the cello suites is their increasing difficulty, with the sixth, BWV 1012 in D Major, composed for a five-string cello, possibly the violoncello piccolo (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00001191). Bach used this instrument in a third applicational as an obbligato part (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obbligato) about 1725 in Leipzig in sacred cantata arias for trio or quartet (BWV 6, 41, 49, 68, 85, 115, 175, 180, 183). French cellist Christophe Coin (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Coin-Christophe.htm) has recorded many of these and others https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Coin.htm) while Thomas Braatz has written an extensive article, "Violoncello Piccolo in Bach's Vocal Works," http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Violoncello-Piccolo.htm). The possible Leipzig cellist was Georg Gottfried Wagner (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Wagner-Georg-Gottfried.htm).
"By exploring Baroque conceptions of gesture, dance and idiomatic writing, one may imagine how musical and physical gestures converged for Bach when composing his six suites," says Anna Wittstruck.3 The importance of dance gesture as action for philosopher René Descartes and for the Doctrine of Affections of Johann Mattheson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_affections) made social dance and ultimately the musical forms central to Bach's compositional interests. While "the relationship between music, musical affect, and dance origins will vary considerably depending on dance type and each individual movement," she says, Bach by tradition "adheres to the dance's particular step patterns and rhythms" while he added a progressive galant minuet to the First and Second Suite, the bourrée in suites three and four, and the gavotte in the final two (Nos. 5, 6). None were intended to be danced but were vehicles of musical expression, she says (Ibid.: "Baroque Dance in the Cello Suites"). Meanwhile, instrumental (not vocal) music was the leading type in the 18th century as the concerto and sonata were developed, says Robert L. Marshall in his new book.4 Between the 1720s and 1730s, a new style developed emphasizing more "mixed rhythms, homophonic textures, and periodic phrasing," says Marshall, "specifically dance music — throughout the seventeenth century and earlier." Later, Mozart (and Haydn) would "produce another grand synthesis by incorporating into the works of their maturity the sophisticated polyphonic procedures" of Bach and Handel, says Marshall (Ibid.: 261 Footnote 11).
Idiomatic Writing, Transcriptions, Applications, Teaching
Another perspective was "Bach's idiomatic writing for the cello," Wittstruck observes (Ibid.: "Bach and the Cello"). Bach's father, Ambrosius (1645-96, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ambrosius_Bach), was a violinist in Eisenach and his son "would later play violin and viola, and most likely cello," says Christoph Wolff,5 cited by Wittstruck. She also cites Wilfrid Mellers,6 who shows "how well musical affect matches with Bach's writing for a particular instrument," for example in the Prelude of the Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dWyGsroNI). Interestingly, Bach's way of writing idiomatically can be transferred to other instruments, take the so-called "Arioso" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tod_rbkXAHI) to cello (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Oe3nkQji8), keyboard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EcwpiZxYHE), string quartet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaOvPFIHRoY), and flute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_tY7VF6L98). "Efrati argues that transcription is evidence that the works are not idiomatic, and that they may not have been written for ‘cello, but something that resembles a viola," says Wittstruck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNh9EZ34Uk), citing Richard Efrati.7 "It should be noted that Efrati is an active violist." The cello suites have been transcribed for just about every instrument imaginable (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Suites_(Bach): "Arrangements"). There are at least two editions of all Bach's solo works arranged for keyboard: Gustav Leonhardt (https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/BT1428.pdf, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l9whtywT5eFXOlyOrFBK6wHsqpcgATOt8) and David Schulenberg (https://faculty.wagner.edu/david-schulenberg/bach-transcriptions/).
While the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1001-1006, have found considerable favor in the concert hall and beyond, the six cello suites also have found numerous applied versions in the visual arts8 with movies such as Master and Commander (Yo-Yo Ma) and The Pianist (Dorota Imiełowska), television's The West Wing, various popular recording anthologies, and ringtones. Dancers who have choreographed the Bach music include Mikhail Baryshnikov-Jerome Robbins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HicqwLT7WgY), Rudolf Nureyev, Mark Norris and Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Selective, somovements have been played as memorial music for the Boston Marathon victims (Sarabande, BWV 1011/4), Katherine Graham, and Edward Kennedy (Sarabande BWV 1012/4). Yo-Yo Ma in his video of the six cello suites employs six artistic collaborations involving Kabuki artist, etchings, garden design, choreography, ice dancers, and filmmakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspired_by_Bach). Ma's third versions of the suites, "Six Evolutions," is currently underway (https://www.npr.org/2018/10/10/656182285/yo-yo-ma-presents-bach-as-a-wise-and-spellbinding-storyteller-in-six-evolutions).
The beginning of the first cello suite is as iconic as the beginning of the Prelude in C Major, BWV 846, of the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, and is similar in style with simple, arpeggiated chords (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToWj_4xvVZA). It is quite possible that both pieces of music were conceived at the same time as the beginnings of pedagogical collections for their respective instruments. Also conceived at the same time as the violin solos, the cello solos "are informed by a certain didactic intent, more so then the sonatas and partitas for violin," says Hans Vogt.9 This is particularly true of the first cello suite, which "has all the qualities of an 'introductory work'," he says (Ibid." 179). The suites appear to serve as the "Gradus and Parnassus" of cello playing: the early suites are easier and become gradually more difficult,: says Martin Geck.10 The suites are "monophonic music wherein a man has created a dance of God, says Mellers (Ibid.: 15). The "music springs from the dance and from the corporeal act of playing the cello, yet in the process earthbound temporality is sublimated into continuous line," he says (Ibid.: 18).
Six Solo Cello Suites
The first cello suite in sunny G Major lays the groundwork for the five that are to come. The standard six contrasting dance movements have a sense of balance and proportion, unity and diversity. The slow prelude establishes "that the piece is considerably more than a preparatory study," says Vogt (Ibid.: 179f), concluding with a bariolage section that "transcends the boundaries of a simple prelude." Bach follows with an allemande in symmetrical portions and a similarly shaped courante, both played at lively tempos. The send half of the suite has the substantial, slow sarabande (the heart of the work), with two minuets in elemental yet leisurely rhythm and a "joy of making music," concluding with a binary gigue with compressed phrases in the second half, underscoring the conclusion.
The second suite offers a more substantial, intertwined prelude followed by the allemande with more double stops emphasizing a certain severity associated with the somber key of D minor and succeeded by the courante of Bach artistry emphasizing special phrasings, says Vogt (Ibid.: 180f); the central sarabande alternates classical rhythmic chordal and cadential linear parts in contrasting tension followed by two minuets, serious and lively, and the concluding gigue "also has an air of 'going against the grain' and its angularity occasionally projects an 'appassionato' mood."
A much different approach is taken by Mellers in the final four, more challenging and striking cello suites which he takes out of order, showing the relationship between the keys of E-Flat Major (BWV 1010) and D Major (BWV 1012) and the complimentary C minor (BWV 1011) and C Major (BWV 1009). Where Bach in the collection of the six violin sonatas and partitas, alternating the two genres, maintained an harmonic integrity with the first four works in minor keys — g, b, a and d — and concluding in the major keys of C and E Major, the cello suites in uniformity of form contrast certain keys including the use of E-Flat Major (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gik8OE8VhiU) with three flats symbolic of the Trinity while the other keys also have spiritual implications. The Prelude to BWV 1010 is a "cantilena that sunders the barriers of metrical time," says Mellers (Ibid.: 18f). "It becomes religious music," related to the [bass] arioso, No. 19, "Betrachte, meine Seele" (Ibid.: 1191-125; Consider, my soul, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jc8j0fmmsE), alternating repose and movement. The key of E-Fat major here represents "certitude of Christian grace, the Godhead incarnate in Man." The succeeding allemande also is physical and metaphysical, serious and sacramental, "relief after the prelude's tragic grandeur." The courante is a "foil to the allemande's gravity" as in Bach's divine comedy hilarity may at any moment turn into exaltation." The central sarabande is ceremonial, solemn and sacral, similar to the closing choruses of the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, "that transports us back to the passionate and Passion-laden aura of the prelude" in a "purgatorial process." Galanteries abide in the two bourrées, a classical, solid scherzo and a dreamy trio. The closing gigue is a shifting, pulsating 12/8 da capo, closing a work of light and shadow.
The final D Major suite of triumph, BWV 1012, begins as a "celebration of the visible" with the "seeming inevitability of its unfolding," says Mellers (Ibid.: 26f, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBL04BYNR8U), beginning "the last, greatest and grandest of the suites" with the greatest range of expression. The allemande is disciplined passion while the courante is "uneasily hilarious," he says (Ibid.: 29), the saraband is both human and divine, the lively gavotte is in 2/2 metre and the second gavotte is "in musette style" (Ibid.: 32), and the concluding gigue "is neither grand nor sublime; yet neither is it innocent." Turning to the last pair of suites, Mellers finds the C minor suite, in the relative minor of three flats, still Trinitarian (BWV 1011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhJuSU6C1e0) "the toughest and gravest," beginning with a prelude as a two-part slow-fast French overture, ceremonial with "tragic pathos" and a 3/8 dance "strenuous rather than blithe." The allemande and courante are darker. The monodic "sarabande is harmonically powerful, even anguished," says Mellers (Ibid.: 34) in music of purgation, while both the final gavotte and gigue are somber. The suite in the C Major of contentment (BWV 1009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBhq2Gomupg) is "the most sensuous of the set," he says (Ibid.: 34f) and "profits most from performance in ecclesiastical acoustics." The grand prelude and allemande, the latter "noble, even hymnic in manner," lead to a sumptuous sarabande, a bourrée of bucolic vigour and a mirthful gugue. In his cello suites, Bach fuses "the apparently contradictory principles of religious monody and secular dance," he says (Ibid.: 35), defining "the heart of his sublime and unique achievement."
"In Bach's time, it was unusual to play in the church, during the communion, a concerto or solo upon some instrument," says Johann Nikolaus Forkel in his Bach biography.11 "He often wrote such pieces himself and always contrived them so that his performers could, by their means, improve on their instruments." Forkel lists the two collections of the violin and cello solo works as supreme pedagogical studies. Only in recent years have Bach scholars pursued in contextual depth the spiritual meaning of these two collections, suggesting that the violin pieces could have been a memorial to Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara, who died in Cöthen in 1720, probably during their composition, or a Christological study of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, suggests Benjamin Shute,12 while the cello pieces are a spiritual keepsake for church perfor, as Forkel says, or as "home music" "with divinely endowed performers in mind," says Mellers (Ibid.: 18)
FOOTNOTES
1 See Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot, "Haimovitz Plays Bach," program notes, October 23, 2015, https://www.millertheatre.com/explore/program-notes/haimovitz-plays-bach, relate Pablo Casals discovery of the Bach six cello suites, scant early cello repertory, and Bach's music.
2 Robert L. Marshall and Traute M. Marshall, Exploring the World of J. S. Bach: A Traveler's Guide (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016), published in conjunction with the American Bach Society (https://books.google.com/books?id=6HtMDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Carl+Bernhard+Lienicke&source=bl&ots=jA7Ufo_bLl&sig=ACfU3U18KWTv-cbrh087cxBAgsDWojFRyQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSnYuJ17_lAhXYrZ4KHe69Bs8Q6AEwA3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Carl%20Bernhard%20Lienicke&f=false.
3 Wittstruck, Anna. "Dancing with J. S. Bach and a Cello" (Stanford: Stanford University, 2012 http://costanzabach.stanford.edu/history/baroque-dance [accessed 21 October 2019]).
4 Robert L. Marshall, Prologue, "The Century of Bach and Mozart as a Music-Historical Epoch: A Different Argument for then Proposition," in Bach and Mozart: Essays on the Enigma of Genius (Rochester NY: University of Rochester, 2019: 6f).
5 Christoph Wolff, Bach: The Learned Musician, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014: 42).
6 Wilfrid Mellers, Part I, Prelude; Chapter 2, "Voice and Body, Bach's Cello Suites as an Apotheosis of the Dance" in Bach and the Dance of God (London: Faber, 1980: 34).
7 Richard R. Efrati, Treatise on the Execution and Interpretation of the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and the Suites for Solo Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach, translated Efrati with Harry Lyth (Zürich: Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, 1979). Bärenreiter offers various editions of the cello suites, https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/focus/music-for-cello/bachs-cello-suites/.
8 See Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece (New York: Grove Press, 2009: 6ff).
9 Hans Vogt, Johann Sebastian Bach's Chamber Music: Background, Analyses, Individual Works, Eng. trans. Kenn Johnson ( Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1988: 178f); original, Johann Sebastian Bachs Kammermusik: Voraussetzungen, Analysen, Einzelwerke (Stuttgart: GmbH, 1981); overview, https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1711970.
10 Martin Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach; Life and Work (Orlando: Harcourt Books, 2000: 603).
11 Johann Nikolaus Forkel, iv "Instrumental Pieces," "On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Genius and Works," inThe New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, eds. Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel; rev. And enlarged Christoph Wolff (New York: W. W. Norton: 1998: 472.
12 Benjamin Shute. Sei Solo: Symbolium? The Theology of J. S. Bach's Solo Violin Works (Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016: xi).
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bylsma, Anner. Bach, The Fencing Master: About Mrs. Anna Magdalena Bach's Autograph Copy of the 6 Suites for Violoncello senza Basso of Johann Sebastian Bach. Amsterdam: The Fencing Mail, 2019. The recently-deceased (1934-2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anner_Bylsma), noted Dutch cellist takes cellists through the copy and makes revealing notes about how to play the music (http://www.lulu.com/shop/anner-bylsma/bach-the-fencing-master-about-mrs-anna-magdalena-bachs-autograph-copy-of-the-6-suites-for-violoncello-solo-senza-basso-of-johann-sebastian-bach/paperback/product-24050653.html). He also includes his own print versions of the cello suites transcribed for viola and for violin.
Elie, Paul. Part II, "A Man in a Room," 59-112. In Reinventing Bach. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), review https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/books/reinventing-bach-by-paul-elie.html. Pablo Casals is the main topic of this chapter in Elie's highly informative study of noted Bach performers and how recordings lead the Bach Revival in the 20th century. This chapter also covers the Bach biographical materials with his time in Cöthen. Much more information on Casals is scattered through this book and topics are found in the Index under Casals.
Winold. Allen. Bach's Cello Suites: Analyses & Exploration, Vol. 1, Text; Vol.II Music. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), summary http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=41752: Table of Contents. Thus is a performers' musicological guide
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TO COME: Solo Music for Lute and Fute, Sonatas for Violin |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (October 31, 2019):
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mickelson, Brooke. J. S. Bach’s Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites: What did Bach Want? Pullman WA: Washington State University: March 2018, on-line https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/998/2018/04/BrookeMickelson-JSBachDanceSuites.pdf. This is a concise, studied overview of the six cello suites, with material on the Martin Jarvis theory of Anna Magdalena Bach as the composer (more information, see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/B0220.htm).
Szabó, Zoltán. "Problematic Sources, Problematic Transmission: An Outline of the Edition History of the Solo Cello Suites by J. S. Bach," PhD thesis. Sydney: Sydney Conservatorium of Music, 2016. The proliferation — more than 100 editions of this masterpiece — due to the lack of an autograph, is a complicated source-critical history and Szabó examines the Kellner copy of 1726, before the Anna Magdalena Bach copy of 1728-31, for a new perspective, possibly based on a revised autograph. Another Szabó article, see "Decoding the music masterpieces: Bach’s Six Solo Cello Suites," https://andantemoderato.com/decoding-music-masterpieces-bachs-six-solo-cello-suites/. |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (October 31, 2019):
Szabó, Zoltán. "Problematic Sources,
https://www.academia.edu/32092556/Problematic_Sources_Problematic_Transmission_An_Outline_of_the_Edition_History_of_the_Solo_Cello_Suites?email_work_card=thumbnail |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (November 9, 2019):
One additional article on the Bach Solo Cello Suites, published in 2000 by Bärenreiter as part of a collection of facsimiles of the first four copy sources also is unique in that it has a Text Volume study in English by Douglas Woodfull-Harris and Bettina Schwermer. The scholarly-critical performing edition, 6 Suites a Violoncellon Solo senza Basso, BWV 1007-1012 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000, BA 5216), has all four original copy sources: A, Anna Magdalena Bach copy 1727-1731; B. Johann Peter Kellner copy, 1725-27; C. Anonymous copyist, second half 18th century; and D, anonymous copyist, toward end of 18th century. What frustrates cellists when they consider this masterpiece is that all are copies withdivergent markings from unknown, lost sources possibly in three compositional stages with divergent markings.
The English language Text Volume of 40 large pages offers some insights into these versions which date to the original composition of 1720, the Leipzig revisions which involve the last two suites in scordatura tuning and a five-string presumably violoncello piccolo, and the possibility that "Bach himself again revised the cello suites toward the end of the first-half of the eighteenth century," say the authors in the section"Genesis of the Suites" (p. 10). The article begins with "The Textual Tradition: The Sources, Editorial Value of the Sources, and Genesis of the Suites. The second section on performance practice looks at the dance forms in the suites, the cello in Bach's day, and the instrument of the sixth suite. Various performance characteristics and practices are examined, including articulation, bowing, and most notably the slurs.
While Bach was fastidious in his autographs of the music notation, the copyists were not and in the ornamentation these are subject to a range of interpretations. Contemporary cellists also provide a great range of interpretations, as found in Zoltán Szabó's "The Road Towards the First Complete Edition: Dissemination of J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites in the Nineteenth Century," which offers various recordings and lists related studies he has done, https://www.academia.edu/4991034/The_Road_Towards_the_First_Complete_Edition_Dissemination_of_J._S._Bach_s_Solo_Cello_Suites_in_the_Nineteenth_Century?email_work_card=view-paper |
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Jeffrey Solow wrote (November 9, 2019):
[To William L. Hoffman] The Douglas Woodful-Harris/Bettina Schwermer Text Volume, while containing much useful content, is also full of inaccuracies, opinions, and unlikely conjectures. A more up-to-date commentary is Andrew Talle's introduction to his 2016 Bärenreiter edition. However, in my opinion, it too, misses the mark in some aspects. James Grier's 1996 book, The Critical Editing of Music, demonstrates convincingly that Sources A, C, and D contain so many mistakes in common that are not present in Source B (Kellner), that they had to have descended from a common source (which I call Source [X]) that was independent of Source B. Talle also confirms my observation that all four sources (A-D) must have ultimately descended from a single common source, and that source cannot have been a Bach fair copy, it had to have been a working copy. This can be shown by the fact that although all four sources contain many mistakes in common, the mistakes in the 5th Suite were corrected in Bach's Lute Version of that suite (Source H). Thus, had he made a fair copy of all six suites, he would have similarly identified and fixed the mistakes that were passed down to Sources A-D. (Woodful-Harris/Schwermer offer the traditional but highly unlikely 'relationship tree' (stemma) showing Sources A, C, and D descending from Bach's Fair Copy while Source B descends from Bach's working copy.)
I will be presenting a lecture on this in Los Angeles at the Gregor Piatigorsky International Cello Festival this coming March at USC. |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (November 9, 2019):
[To Jeffrey Solow] Bach's Six Solo Cello Suites (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1007-1012.htm), offer a wide range of original copyists, a wide range of interpreters on recordings (https://groups.io/g/Bach/topic/40983692, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1007-1012.htm#Rec), and an equally wide range of print editions (https://imslp.org/wiki/6_Cello_Suites%2C_BWV_1007-1012_(Bach%2C_Johann_Sebastian). The Bärenreiter 2000 scholarly critical edition with four facsimiles (https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BA5217/) is a unique publication. These four copies (A-D) and their original, lost autograph sources (F, G) are discussed in Thomas Braatz's 2009 Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) provenance article, "6 Suites for Violoncello BWV 1007-1012" (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Ref/BWV1007-1012-Ref.pdf), based on the NBA critical editions in German of the six suites and the violin solo works. Braatz describes "Serious Transmission Problems" in the Anna Magdalena and Johann Peter Kellner copies (A and B) and examines the printed early and later versions (p. 7). He also examines Bach's compositional dating and motivation for composing the cello suites as didactic works similar to others in Köthen or for church performances as Musica da Chiesa. Braatz also has an extensive 2007 BCW article on the violoncello piccolo (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Violoncello-Piccolo.htm) which also is described at https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violoncello_piccolo&prev=search. The late cellist Anner Bylsma recorded various Bach works in transcriptions for violoncello piccolo (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Bylsma-A.htm). |
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Jeffrey Solow wrote (November 9, 2019):
[To William L. Hoffman] Yes, I have read Thomas Braatz's discussion (and was responsible for calling Aryeh Oron's attention to its not having his name attached). It is for sure a valuable summary but, dating from 2009, is not completely up-to-date in information (for example, Anon. 402 has now been identified as Nikolaus Schober) as well as having not been completely finished (Braatz notes that additional information needs to be inserted in spots). Plus, he offers this, which does not align with the evidence that points to A,C, and D being derived from a source intermediate between them and JSB's working copy: |
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BCW: Discography of the Suites for Solo Cello BWV 1007-1012 |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (November 3, 2019):
To complement the current discussion of J.S. Bach's Suites for Solo Cello BWV 1007-1012 on the Bach Mailing List (BML), I created a new discography of these important works on the BCW.
The discography has been compiled in recent years from various sources. The list of recordings of the Cello Suites split into several pages, a page for a decade. Since these works have been arranged/transcribed to other instruments, I have added discography pages of arrangements/transcription to each instrument type: flute/recorder, guitar/lute, keyboard, marimba, saxophone, viola, and violin. You can view the discography pages through the main page of BWV 1007-1012 on the BCW: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1007-1012.htm
This page includes, as usual, internal links to reviews & discussions, as well as external links to other pages about these works.
The list includes both recordings of complete sets (all 6 Cello Suites) and recordings of individual Cello Suites. Except of a few cases, recordings of individual movements are not included. All in all, over 150 albums with the Cello Suites are listed. As in other discographies on the BCW, each recording is listed only once. All the issues of each recording are presented together. If a performer has recorded the Cello Suites more than once, the info includes also the recording number.
I have also compiled all the discussions of the Cello Suites stored in my computer from 2001 onward. The discussions are arrangechronologically. If the recordings of the Cello Suites by a certain performer are discussed, they are compiled into a dedicated page. Links to the discussion pages can be found at the main page of the Cello Suites above, and at the discography pages.
Please also notice that for most albums there is a link at the cell of the album title. This link takes you to the page of the soloist, in which you can find other Bach recordings by this artist.
With such popular works as the Cello Suites, it seems unavoidable that I have missed some (or many) recordings of them. If you are aware of a recording of the Cello Suites not listed in these pages, or if you find an error or missing information, please inform me, either through the BML or to my personal e-mail address. |
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Thierry van Bastelaer wrote (November 3, 2019):
Aryeh, you are such a treasure! Thank you for your tireless work on behalf of Bach lovers worldwide! We are all immensely grateful to you. |
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