Bach: Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV 1007 (Lipkind, Yamashita, Dieltiens)

Given the foundational place Bach’s Cello Suites occupy in the cello repertoire, it’s kind of amazing to think that they languished in almost-total obscurity until a young Pablo Casals found the score on sale along a Barcelona street in 1890, and that at the time Bach wrote the suites – in 1720 or so – the cello was a relatively new and experimental instrument (we still don’t know what kind of cello Bach wrote these for, since so many variants proliferated during the period). Until today the autograph manuscript of the suites has not been found (there is a remote possibility – not kidding – that it is stashed a trunk lost in Illinois around 1950), and the copy which Anna Magdalena Bach made (the best source we have) might have been from a manuscript which was still a work in progress, or even one that was never completed.

In any case, the cello suites are some of Bach’s profoundest works, and fully deserve their reputation – even when only a single melodic line is being played, they are replete with little miracles of craft and harmony and counterpoint, and it’s remarkable how Bach can resolve one note into another very far away in time and register. They are arranged in increasing order of difficulty (though 2/3 and 4/5 are kind of close), and have a common structure: they open and close with a prelude and gigue, with three old Baroque dances (allemande, sarabande, courante) in between, plus one newer dance (minuet/bourrée/gavotte).

1. Prelude – Composed almost exclusively of broken chords, with scales only entering at three important points. The use of texture here is very purposeful – the prelude opens with a G major chord in its most generous, relaxed spacing, but as tension builds the spacing contracts, reaching its tightest at m.11, when D major is yanked away from beneath your feet, and in the beautiful bariolage passage using the A string at mm.31-6. The harmonic schema is pretty clever too – the Em harmony starting from m.5 sets up an obvious move to D major via an A dominant 7th, but the big landing on D (m.10) is almost immediately cancelled out by a diminished 7th chord which nudges us into Am. And then after the opening formula is repeated, we get a scale (m.19) which leads to a low C# which we now think *must* resolve up to D in the way we were earlier denied, but it instead slips down to C natural (m.22), giving us a D dominant 7th in its most tense inversion. (And since that C can't resolve down on a cello as it wants to, it has no choice but to find closure in the B two octaves above in the middle of m.25.) Also – is there a more moving 6/4 chord than the one in m.39?

2. Allemande – Where the prelude self-consciously avoided scales, the allemande is all about them. And where the prelude played harmonic tricks, the allemande gives us what we expect, with the E in the bass of m.6 dutifully guiding us into D major, where we stay (see the C# m.10). The second strain starts off cabined in a narrow range, but grows into some strikingly jagged textures (see especially mm.19-23).

3. Courante – The allemande was built from small, scalar intervals, and this courante celebrates the big ones. After a perky 8 bars of dance rhythm, it joyfully wanders off into irregular phrases, but note how often the figure introduced at mm.5-6 occurs, either in its original form or in inversion, to build up momentum (see m.36, where it interrupts the structure by being inserted before the cadence). The tension peaks at the D# of m.26 – note also that augmented 4th that leads into that bar, and the augmented 5th leading out of it.

4. Sarabande – Gentle and uncomplicated. As each strain progresses the basic note values are shortened. Note also the lovely war Bach leans on the 2nd beat of each bar by placing triple/quadruple stops there, as well as the technically rhythmically incorrect notation of the demisemiquavers at m.3, which implies the freedom of the gesture.

5. Menuets I/II – Menuet I begins with the G/D/B gesture that also opens the Prelude, Allemande, and Sarabande, and is a sharp contrast to the Courante – while still recognisably dancelike, its sense of movement is offset by a relatively relaxed basic tempo, and it comes across as more heartfelt or lyrical than anything else. Menuet II is built around the Andalusian cadence, and its single line implies a surprising amount of harmony (the 7-6 suspension in the first two bars, for instance, or the 9th chords in mm.9 and 11).

6. Gigue – Lots of nice rhythmic work going on here. The first strain sets up a series of clear 4-bar phrases, but this structure breaks down dramatically in the second strain with the entrance of that looping figure in the second half of m.16 and the use of a 7-bar phrase at the close. Note also how Bach builds into climaxes by alternating between two different rhythmic patterns, and then suddenly losing one to focus on the other (mm. 28-32). Another nice feature is the use of G minor near the ends of strains for harmonic colour.

Видео Bach: Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, BWV 1007 (Lipkind, Yamashita, Dieltiens) канала Ashish Xiangyi Kumar