Evening Music - Bach's Suites for Cello Solo

Programme:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Suite in G major
Prélude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet I and II, Gique

Suite in D major a cinq cordes
from it: Sarabande, Gavotte I and II

Suite in C minor discordable
Prélude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte I and II, Gique

About 20 years after this music was written down, J. A. Scheibe expressed his view on the ideal attitude of a practical musician:

"All practical musicians should generally take care to sing and play in accordance with the composer's intention, and thus to express all notes cleanly and clearly. I do not at all demand that a practical musician should immediately sing or play every piece placed before him without knowing it further. [...] I demand rather that he should be capable of performing those pieces which he has had time and opportunity to study, cleanly, clearly, in an orderly manner, and with appropriate emphasis. I believe, moreover, that it cannot happen without a miracle for a [...] difficult piece to be brought out with full beauty, order, and emphasis, as the composer's intention requires, as the characteristics of the style and all other relevant circumstances demand."

For me, working on the cello suites has something of mountaineering as it was practised 150 years ago: you plan, you strain yourself, you risk a fall - and what remains at the end? Precisely the realisation that the highest summit is evidently somewhere else entirely. This is only partly because the original source material - in this case Bach's own manuscript - no longer exists. More than 100 editions in modern notation now exist, based on the surviving copy made by Bach's second wife and later transcriptions. But does that make it easier to find the way? We can only guess at his language - the original phrasings and emphases have not survived. Do we even know for whom...