Bach Solo Cello Suites

I cannot respond directly, as I don't have the Casals recording. My mother does, I think, on ancient vinyl.

I would like to recommend to you to ALSO give a really up-to-date interpretation of the Bach cello works a listen. Casals is a fenomenal player and personality, but his concept of Bach is kind of based in the 19th Century - ponderous and somehow abstracted.

Whereas, of course, these suites are sequences of movements based on dance rythms. Not that listeners were actually dancing to Bach's beat (we have no clue about the performance purpose of these works), however, no one gets hurt if the rythm is a little bouncey.

Early 20 th C performers tended to emphasize the earnest, "spiritual-struggle" aspect of these works - they were turning them into pre-Beethoven works. Rostropovich does this, too, with his almost symphonic approach to the cello.

Of course, you want to listen to these guys because they're huge personalities and great players. But you may also want to give a recording like Anner Bylsma's a try. It's on Sony. The sound is much lighter, the playing is fleeter, he's got a great instrument, and the music is just as great.

Herm

For those who appreciate solo cello, let me once again commend to your attention the Starker recording of the Gaspar Cassado suite for solo cello on the Star records label (Star X03). Actually, I own and appreciate all Starkers releases on this label. This release has (IMHO) significant artistic merit and superb sonics.

On my copy the address for Star Records is
11426 West 106th St.
Shawnee Mission, KS 66214

Ph: 913-492-3677

If you can't get this recording via that address and are interested, please post a reply here and I'll recommend other means of obtaining them.

Markus

sure, the Wispelwey is great. I didn't want to recommend it, not being sure if Channel Classics (an Amsterdam mom-and-pop label) travels. But clearly it does!

Herm

I have to say I'm kind of intrigued by the address you listed for Janos Starker recordings. I have quite a few Starker recordings. However, it seems there's also a body of his work on a Native Indian label or something?

Hi Stevie

will you let us know about the Bach?

Secondly: you like 20th C chamber music, don't you? Well, get a load of this. Today I got a Koch Int disc with trios by Charles Wuorinen. Only one of them is the traditional piano, violin, cello combo, which I have been playing continuously so as to get used to it subliminally.

Herm

I don't know anything about Starker releases on a native american/indian label...

It is my understanding that the releases which he put out on the Star label were to make specific performances available to his students when he was teaching at Indiana. For example, one of the releases is titled "the road to cello playing" and on this release he does mind-boggling performances of student studies and drills. I think the purpose was to demonstrate the effect that technique and interpretation could have on the most basic elements of the cello repertoire.

Good luck on tracking down these releases, especially the Cassado. I, also, have a fare bit of Starker and I haven't seen this piece anywhere else. I think it was originally released in Japan.

Markus

Herm
What is the Charles Wuorinen like after getting to know it subliminally?

Steve

Hi Steve,

thanks for asking. I'm real busy right now writing a piece (still listening to the music though - including a freak purchase of the Barenboim SIEGFRIED after seeing a great LOHENGRIN this weekend), so why don't I give a Wuorinen report later this week?

Bye now

Herm

the best period Bach player would have to be the weirdly named Anner Bylsma. There's a recording on Sony from the early nineties on a beautiful instrument form the Smithsonian in D.C., and if memory serves he made another recording at the end of the decade as well.

A lot of people, however, prefer the Peter Wispelwey recording on Channel Classics, which is as I recall, not entirely period, but more like benefiting from an awareness of period practices. So the playing has the apt fleetness. (Check a couple posts higher up.)

Funny how both players are Dutchmen. Well, switch on the radio in this place and 5 out of 10 times you get some kind of Bach.

Hate to say it, but obviously Yo Yo Ma is very much unperiod Bach. Only Rostropovich is further down the Mahlerian line. (The Rost. recording was much lauded, but in reality it's a hoot.)

Herman

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:

Hate to say it, but obviously Yo Yo Ma is very much unperiod Bach.

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Hey, isn't everyone?

I bought the Wispelway [Sorry, I should have thanked people here for their advice. I'd said it on another thread and forgot to say it on this one. My brain at it's limits again]

But I've been happy with his recording. He plays on a period instrument: baroque cello of 1710 and 18th C piccolo cello for the suite No 6. I'm not qualified to say whether the playing is better than anyone else's but it is very enjoyable. It was also highly recommended here and by Gramophone.

Steve

of course you're right. We all do not live in Bach's era. The difference however between say Rostropovich and Wispelwey - more or less recorded at the same time - is that Rostropovich seems to play the Bach as if B's a 19th Century symphonist who chose the cello as his orchestra, while Wispelwey is much more aware that Bach could not have wanted to tell the same story as, say, Beethoven, because, for one thing, the entire Romantic ideology had yet to come.

Especially as a musician you may feel attracted to the idea that we're all cousins wanting to do the same thing - just make some music - but actually you're getting more out of the music if you listen to the period differences.

(This, incidentally, is why I'm not so terribly interested in legendary batonists like Fürtwängler, since their Beethoven and Bruckner tend to sound pretty much the same too, only shorter and longer, but with F. both composers were telling the same semi-mystical Teutonic story. I don't think so.)

In any form of art over time, the differences are always more interesting than the similarities.

So this is long for get the Wispelwey!

Herman

Pete Mad Bad & Dangerous to Know

well, you are aware Bach was no heathen himself...

herman

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:
_thou heathens_

well, you are aware Bach was no heathen himself...

herman

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Are you kidding? With 21 kids?

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:
Hi Fred,

... Especially as a musician you may feel attracted to the idea that we're all cousins wanting to do the same thing - just make some music - but actually you're getting more out of the music if you listen to the period ... In any form of art over time, the differences are always more interesting than the similarities.

Herman

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Herm, good points, all taken. Actually, as a dyed-in-the-wool musical omnivore, for me it comes down to perhaps an even less discriminating issue, best described by Duke Ellington: If it sounds good, it is good.

I listen to both period and non-period interpretations, and get equal value from both. I don't think there is anything inherently more true in one or the other; after all, I assume Bach hoped his works would be performed long past his death, and would therefore be open to readings other than those adhering to his original intention.

"I assume Bach hoped his works would be performed long past his death, and would therefore be open to readings other than those adhering to his original intention"

Of course you're right, though, obviously, most modern forms of performance and reproduction were totally unknown in Bach's day and age. Most Bach music we're talking about here is DIY music. The solo pieces were to be played first, and heard second. You didn't go to Carnegie Hall to listen to a guy perform the Violin Partitas.

The way the music is communicated these days is modern, via recitals and hifi reproduction. Still, there's a lot to be said for immersing oneself somehow in the otherness of this music, by getting a good period performance. As I said before: the differences are more intesting than similarities.

But you're just as right (to say the least) to opt for what communicates best to you - we're both talking about what sounds really alive.

Herman