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Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

🎻✨ Two types of gigues in Bach’s Cello Suites

The Italianate Giga and the French Gigue

The brilliant style of the Gigues from Suites Nos. 4 and 6 suggest the Italian form of the dance, known as “giga.”

The opposite stylistic extreme is found in the Gigue from Suite No. 5, the only true French gigue among the Cello Suites (comparable to the Gigue from French Suite No. 2, BWV 813). An elegant movement in its restraint, its nearly constant use of a dotted rhythmic figure is so steady that it is a prominent event each time freer rhythms appear to mark the modulations leading to cadences in each half (mm. 15–20 near the cadence in E-flat major and mm. 61–66 near the final cadence in C minor).

Examples: Cello Suite No. 6 (a) and Cello Suite No. 5 (b)

This slide reproduces excerpts from the Gigues from Cello Suites Nos. 6 and 5.

The Cello Suites at Your Fingertips
Order a copy of Bach: The Cello Suites by Edward Klorman for your personal guide to these magnificent compositions!
For more information, visit Bach-Cello-Suites.com.
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The slide reproduces an image of the cover of Edward Klorman’s book Bach: The Cello Suites.

November 15, 2025 at 10:15 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

🎻✨ Imaginative new cello sounds inspired by Bach’s suites

🔗 Links in the comments.

Imaginative new cello sounds inspired by Bach’s suites
Composed around 1720, Bach’s Cello Suites have come to define how we think of the sound of the solo cello. Composers such as Clarice Jensen and Kaija Saariaho have continued to look to Bach for inspiration in imagining new sounds and colors in their unaccompanied cello music.

Kaija Saariaho, Sept Papillons (2000)

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho composed Sept Papillons (Seven Butterflies) for cellist Anssi Karttunen. One of her most popular works, it comprises seven short, imaginative movements that explore the colors of the unaccompanied cello using extended techniques. Many arpeggio passages across the cello’s four strings once again take their inspiration from the ringing, open sound of the Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1.

The slide reproduces a score extract from Papillon VII (the seventh movement).

November 7, 2025 at 12:48 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

🎻✨From Bach to Blood+ and beyond, discover how the Cello Suites echo throughout anime and J-POP.

🔗 Links in the comments.

#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello #anime #neongenesisevangelion #bloodplus #hyouka

Bach Cello Suites in Anime and J-POP
Bach’s Cello Suites have become so iconic around the globe that they are sometimes found in unexpected places, including in popular culture. In Fujisaku Jun’ichi’s anime series Blood+ (2005–06), the mysterious cello-playing chevalier Hagi plays Suite No. 5 in several episodes, sometimes triggering vague flashbacks in his love interest.

At least two anime series have incorporated the memorable Prelude to Suite No. 1: In Anno Hideaki’s postapocalyptic series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), the teenage protagonist Ikari Shinki plays the prelude to express nostalgia for the lost world and to convey emotions that are otherwise difficult for him to communicate. Takemoto Yashuhiro’s Hyouka (2012) frequently incorporates the same prelude into the underscore.

[This slide contains still images of characters from Blood+ and Neon Genesis Evangelion playing Bach’s Cello Suites.]

J-POP

The song “Flying Angel” (2014) by the J-pop group NU’EST opens with the Prelude from Suite No. 1 mixed with a heavenly vocalise. At the vocals enter, piano chords and intermittent drums and electronic sounds are layered onto the cello. Although the cello continues throughout the entire track, it gradually recedes as it is overtaken by the pop elements (such as drums and electronics) that swell to the foreground.

October 13, 2025 at 12:27 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

How might Bach’s Cello Suites have been influenced by French-style pièces de viole?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Bach’s Cello Suites and French Pièces de Viole
In composing unaccompanied violin solos, J. S. Bach was following a well-trodden path with significant contributions from German violinist-composers. Precisely what motivated him to compose Cello Solos is less clear. Compositions such as Domenico Gabrielli’s Ricercari for unaccompanied cello (1689) are not likely to have been familiar to Bach or to have served as his prototype. But is it possible that French-style solos for bass viol (known as pièces de viole, composed with or without added continuo accompaniment) could have influenced his conception of the Cello Suites?

Viola da Gamba: Harmonic vs. Melodic

The French viol player Jean Rousseau (1644–99) distinguished between the “harmonic” style (jeu d’harmonie) of viol playing and the “melodic style” (jeu de mélodie). In the former, the viol conveys both melody and harmony, sometimes through chords and double stops, as well as through registral leaps that distinguish the bass line from the upper voices. In the latter, the viol plays the melody and requires extrinsic accompaniment.

Whereas Rousseau advocated the melodic style, Sieur de Machy (fl. c. 1660–90) considered a viol player playing only melodies to be comparable to “a man who plays perfectly on the harpsichord or organ, [but] only with one hand.” In practice, the distinction between the two styles was sometimes blurred, as some collections were composed to be playable either solo or with continuo accompaniment.

Music in the pièces de viole tradition—either by French composers or by Dutch and German composers who inherited and extended it—was likely part of the musical atmosphere at Cöthen while Bach composed the Cello Suites, given the influence of French music and culture on German courts and the presence of the outstanding gambist Christian Ferdinand Abel.

A Gavotte en rondeau by Sieur de Machy

[An excerpt from a musical score for solo viola da gamba is reproduced here.]

This Gavotte en rondeau from Sieur de Machy’s Pièces de violle (Paris, 1685) exemplifies de Machy’s harmonic style, in which the viol expresses melody, bass, and accompaniment. The texture and style might remind some cellists of the Gavotte from Cello Suite No. 6. It is conceivable that, in composing suites for unaccompanied cello, Bach developed an original synthesis of the German solo-violin tradition and of French pièces de viole.

October 6, 2025 at 3:17 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

How might the earliest Cello Suites performances have sounded?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

How Might the Earliest Cello Suites Performances Have Sounded?

Just as nineteenth-century editions of Bach’s Cello Suites fall on a continuum from more restrained to more flamboyant (with added dynamics, tempo, and other markings), concert performances too must have fallen on a continuum of expressive intensity. Starting around 1860s, concert reviews show that movements from Bach’s Cello Suites began to be played with some frequency. What do these reviews tell us about how these performances might have sounded?

Clues from Reviews
Succinct concert reviews in nineteenth-century journals generally lack details about performance style, typically commenting on the (still obscure) pieces, the overall quality of the cellist’s playing, and the audience response. A critic reviewing a performance by Heinrich Wohlers (c. 1821–80) of two movements from Suite No. 6 reported simply that the cellist “played the Sarabande and Gavotte (la Musette) for cello by S. Bach very commendably.”
Yet other critics were positively ebullient: “Mr. F. Grützmacher from Dresden arounds a veritable storm of applause with his performance of Bach’s suite for violoncello solo. . . . One simply did not know what to admire more: old Bach’s truly inexhaustible gift of invention and combination . . . or the performance style—clear and correct, extremely refined, suffused with intelligence, meticulously worked out unto the finest detail—which so completely adapted and subordinated itself to Bach’s spirit . . . and thus brought the whole a good deal closer to the artistic consciousness of the present day through a treatment that was as intellectual as it was discreet in every respect.”

More on Interpretive Style

Occasionally, critics offered more nuance about the emotional quality of a cellist’s interpretation. An 1865 review of a performance by Louis Lübeck contrasts the special qualities of his sarabande to his dryer, perfunctory approach to other movements: “Mr. Lübeck performance three violoncello pieces by Seb. Bach clearly and correctly. However, it was not until the Sarabande—which, in contrast to the proud character of this Spanish national dance, was much closer to our [German] way of feeling and looking at things due to its almost modern, rapturously elegiac and soulful melody—that he succeeded in achieving a deeper and more emotional involvement and a greater warmth of tone to a highly commendable degree, which the audience appreciated through rich applause.”

Hugo Becker, writing in his cello treatise of 1929, complained of a sentimental, emotionally charged style of Bach performance, railing specifically against the continuous vibrato that was increasingly in vogue among a younger generation of players: “The whining, effeminate Bach playing of many over-sensitive cellists often has an intolerable effect. Serious classical music cannot bear any erotic vibrato; it needs a feeling for style, nobility, and dignity, without any loss of warmth. It is a sign of weakness of a performing artist if his means of expression in vibrato are exhausted.” Evoking unsettling, fascist overtones about degeneracy and effeminacy, Becker’s remarks paint a clear picture of an Apollonian ideal in Bach performance and of changing aesthetics at the dawn of the recording era.

September 28, 2025 at 9:57 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

How can we choose a tempo for preludes and dances from Bach’s Cello Suites?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Choosing a Tempo

C. P. E. Bach’s advice on choosing a tempo resonates with what many musicians known intuitively: “The pace of a composition depends on its general content, which is usually indicated by several well-known Italian expressions, as well as on the fastest notes and figures contained in it.” Since few movements from the Cello Suites have a tempo designation stemming from the composer (such as Allegro or Adagio), the time signature, fastest note values, and style of figuration offer the greatest clues as to tempo. For instance, a gigue notated in 12/8 (as in Suite No. 4) might tend toward a faster, lighter performance than a weightier one notated in 3/8 (as in Suite No. 2).

Telemann’s Gulliver’s Travels Suite: An Extreme Comparison

An exaggerated instance of this principle can be found in G. P. Telemann’s “Guilliver’s Travels” Suite, TWV 40:108. Telemann represents the giants of Borbdingnag with a gigue notated in 24/1: [An extract from the first edition of Telemann's Gigue is reproduced here.]

By contrast, he represents the diminutive Lilliputians with a chaconne notated in 3/32: [An extract from the first edition of Telemann's chaconne is reproduced here.]

Tempo Markings Traceable to Bach
Cello Suite No. 5 exists in a version transcribed for lute known as the Suite in G Minor, BWV 995. In the autograph manuscript of the lute version, the Prelude’s fugal section is marked “très viste” (very fast). This is the only tempo marking that survives in the composer’s hand. [An excerpt from Bach's autograph manuscript, showing the marking "très viste," is reproduced here.]

The florid Allemande from Suite No. 6, written with a time signature of “C” and using extensive thirty-second notes, is designated “Adagio” in a manuscript copy by J. P. Kellner (Source B) and “molto Adagio” in two later anonymous copies (Sources C and D) both made from a manuscript belonging to C. P. E. Bach. This tempo marking is likely authentic to the composer, who is the only person who could have influenced the exemplars for all of these manuscript copies.
Kellner indicated “Presto” for the Prelude from Cello Suite No. 3, which is composed mainly in sixteenth notes. Since this tempo designation is found in no other source, it is uncertain whether it is Kellner’s invention or whether it may have been present in his source.

September 21, 2025 at 6:45 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Pablo Casals was famously the first cellist to record all six Cello Suites. Who were the first cellists to perform the complete cycle in concerts?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Performing the Cello Suites as a Cycle

Today, many cellists have tackled the Herculean feat of performing all six Cello Suites in either a pair of concerts or a single marathon event. The earliest-known concerts of the Cello Suites cycle took place in the decades just after World War II. The Swiss cellist Henri Honegger and the Dutch cellist Max Oróbio de Castro toured this program extensively, frequently drawing comparisons to one another and setting a paradigm that generations of cellists have followed.

Henri Honegger and Max Oróbio de Castro

Honegger—a student of Julius Klengel, Pablo Casals, and Diran Alexanian—played the complete cycle in 1946 in London’s Cowdray Hall and, over the next decade, toured the program across England, the Netherlands, and the United States. A critic reviewing the Cowdray Hall cycle expressed doubts about the six suites as a suitable recital program. But other reviews were more enthusiastic: a pair of 1949 recitals in The Hague were hailed as a “clear, compelling presentation of the composer’s intentions,” rather than a “Romanticized Bach” or a “quasi-spiritualized” and “sterile” one. A review of a 1955 cycle in Wigmore Hall found that his “outlook is so musicianly that his renditions always give genuine satisfaction.” His 1959 box set, recorded over two days, has recently been reissued on CD.

Oróbio de Castro, a student of Isaäc Mossel and Casals—performed the suites in Amsterdam and The Hague in 1948–50. A reviewer from The Hague described his concerts as “an initiative that requires not only craftsmanship but also artistic courage.” Another generally positive review of the same concerts characterized his Romantic style of playing as “representing more the emotional life of a nineteenth-century [composer] than that of Bach or his contemporaries.”

A Proliferation of Cello Suites Cycles

The ensuing decades saw several cellists playing the complete cello suites in New York: David Freed in 1956, George Neikrug in 1979, Norman Fischer in 1984, Mischa Maisky in 1987, and Rostropovich in 1987 (for his sixtieth birthday).

Recitals of the complete cycle played an important role spreading the Cello Suites around the globe. The British-Israeli cellist Thelma Yellin performed the cycle in 1950 in a trio of broadcasts on Kol Yisrael, the Israeli public radio, and Uzi Weisel performed them in a pair of concerts at the Tel Aviv Museum in 1971. The Mexican cellist Carlos Prieto marked the composer’s tercentennial in 1985 with tours to New York, Paris, and throughout India, Mexico, and the USSR.

More recently, Yo-Yo Ma performed the cycle at a BBC Prom in the Royal Albert Hall in 2015 for a sold-out audience of over 5,000 people. He marked the release of his third Cello Suites album (2018) with The Bach Project, a sprawling tour of six continents, comprising thirty-six performances of the cycle and corresponding “days of action” engaging local community organizations and artists.

September 14, 2025 at 8:25 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Today, Bach’s Cello Suites are widely revered as exquisite concert repertoire. But what did their first audiences make of them?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Were the Cello Suites Always Recognized as “Masterpieces”?
A New York Times critic asserted in 1995 that Bach’s Cello Suites “are not only the greatest music written for the instrument but in the running for the greatest music ever written.” But what did some of the first audiences to hear the Cello Suites in concert make of this unusual, distinctive music?

Mixed Reviews
Starting around 1860, when the Cello Suites first began to be performed in concerts, critical and audience reception was mixed. For many listeners, music for cello alone seemed like curiosities somewhat resembling études more than concert repertoire.
In 1868, when Alfredo Piatti performed three solo-Bach movements at the Monday Popular Concerts in London, a critic for The Musical World wrote: “Compared with the six sonata for violin without accompaniment these violoncello solos are light and unpretending. Nevertheless, they are interesting, if only because they are Bach’s. The first and last (in C major) are little better than exercises for the acquirement of mechanical facility, more suitable to the studio than to the concert-room, for which they were clearly never intended; but the second (in G minor [sic]) is melodious and replete with sentiment.”
The American composer Edgar Stillman Kelley, who got to know Suite No. 1 through Robert Schumann’s now-lost piano accompaniment, described what he regarded as the deficits of the unaccompanied version: “[The Allemande], in its original [unaccompanied] form, is the least interesting of the entire suite, being for the most part a series of scale passages with an occasional arpeggio and now and then a trill.”

But Also Rave Reviews
Other critics were positively ebullient. Friedrich Grützmacher’s 1867 performance in Meiningen received the following review in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:
“Mr. F. Grützmacher from Dresden aroused a veritable storm of applause with his performance of a Bach suite for violoncello solo. One simply did not know what to admire more: old Bach’s truly inexhaustible gift of invention and combination, which constantly reveals the new and the surprising, and which here, despite such an extraordinarily limited medium, was nevertheless able to offer such a wealth of varied and interesting ideas; or the performance style—clear and correct, extremely refined, suffused with intelligence, meticulously worked out unto the finest detail—which so completely adapted and subordinated itself to Bach’s spirit, while at the same time, with great skill and the finest artistic understanding, employing the means gained in modern technique to serve that same spirit, and thus brought the whole a good deal closer to the artistic consciousness of the present day through a treatment that was as intellectual as it was discreet in every respect.”

September 7, 2025 at 3:57 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

How do you interpret the meaning across the cycle of six Cello Suites? For nearly a century, cellists such as Steven Isserlis and Yo-Yo Ma have shared their personal interpretations, images, and associations.
#cello #jsbach #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Interpreting the Cello Suites as a Cycle
Although Bach composed the Cello Suites during a period focused on secular instrumental music, many cellists since the twentieth century have interpreted the cycle of six suites in terms of a hidden Christian, spiritual, or humanist program. The tendency of cellists to interpret the Cello Suites as a cycle reflects the intensely personal relationship many cellists develop with the suites from playing and teaching them over many decades. They may also reflect the Cello Suites’ organization as a progression in technical complexity, suggesting an arc from innocence to wisdom and maturity that mirrors the trajectory of a human life. In particular, the distinctive formats of the last two suites—the scordatura tuning and dark timbre of Suite No. 5, and the five-string cello and brilliant style of Suite No. 6—invite expressive interpretation and position Suite No. 6 as a capstone achievement or arrival point for the cycle.

Humanist Interpretations
Yo-Yo Ma holds that “the suites inhabit different keys and different moods: The Third, for example, tends sunny; the Fifth broods. Broadly speaking, the final three are thornier and more troubled than the three before.” For Paul Tortelier, the Prelude to Suite No. 1 suggests a flowing brook, as the composer (whose name is German for “stream”) were signing his name. Suite No. 6, he wrote, is like “a cathedral in the air” with a “forceful and joyous” sound that “rings out like a carillon.”
Gerrit Hulshoff, a Dutch amateur cellist and author of the first-length study of the Cello Suites (published in 1944), characterized the cycle as follows:
Suite No. 1: simple, charming
Suite No. 2: full of internal conflict
Suite No. 3: brilliant, focused on outward contact
Suite No. 4: solemn, broad
Suite No. 5: somber, introspective
Suite No. 6: virtuosic, full of the joy of life

Christian Interpretations
Pablo Casals interpreted the stark Sarabande of Suite No. 6 as representing Christ’s path to the Cross. Steven Isserlis has developed a more elaborate, highly personal interpretation of cycle as a symbolic journey through the life of Christ. Through numerous associations with Bach’s cantatas and other sources, he interprets the six suites as follows:
Suite No. 1: Nativity (birth and new beginnings)
Suite No. 2: Agony in the Garden (sparse prelude like a solitary, contemplative individual)
Suite No. 3: Holy Trinity (Prelude’s descending scale and arpeggio as a joyous proclamation)
Suite No. 4: Presentation in the Temple (Prelude’s architectural opening, beginning with a two-octave leap)
Suite No. 5: Crucifixion (scordatura tuning, the darkest suite, with a Sarabande epitomizing loneliness, desolation, and despair)
Suite No. 6: Resurrection (brightening, joyous effect of adding a fifth string, bell-like resonance of the Prelude’s bariolage)

September 1, 2025 at 11:09 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Do J. S. Bach’s sarabandes always accent the second beat?

#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

Sarabandes: Their Affect and Metrical Character

Originating as a sung dance in Latin America and popularized in Spain, where it was banned in 1583 for its erotic, lascivious nature, the sarabande by Bach’s lifetime had long since been reinvented as a slower, noble dance.

Perspectives from J. S. Bach’s Orbit

According to Bach’s cousin Johann Gottfried Walther, a noted organist and lexicographer, the sarabande was characterized by its “grave” quality. Johann Mattheson, another prominent North German musical writer, held that the sarabande expresses “ambition,” adding that sarabandes intended for dancing should avoid running notes, which would undermine their “grandeur” and “seriousness.”

Bach’s sarabandes are mostly notated in 3/4 meter. Those few that are written in 3/2, as in Cello Suite No. 6, tend to invite a slower performance tempo. The notion that sarabandes are characterized by an emphasized or elongated second beat is valid but calls for some nuance. Many sarabandes tend to emphasize the second beat through a basic “short-long” rhythm, with either long notes or else long harmonies placed on beat 2. Such “long notes” are sometimes obscured by decorative or ornamental notes. See the following slide for details.

Accented Second Beats? Examples from the Cello Suites

The sarabandes from Cello Suites Nos. 1 (a) and 3 (b) feature a short-long harmonic rhythm. But what of the enigmatic sarabande from Cello Suite No. 5 (c)? The bowing/slurring rhythm tends to emphasize beats 1 and 3—a rather un-sarabande-like design! Yet the pattern of unusual appoggiaturas on second beats, approached with the intense diminished-fourth leaps, lends an expressive intensity to those beats.

The slide includes a musical example showing the first four measures of the sarabandes from Cello Suites Nos. 1, 3, and 5. In the examples from Suites Nos. 1 and 3, the annotations show a harmonic rhythm of short-long, with changes of harmony on beats 1 and 2. In the example from Suite No. 5, the annotations show a bowing/slurring rhythm of long-short, with changes of bow on beats 1 and 3. But the example also shows appoggiaturas on each of the second beats. All of those appoggiaturas are approached with a leap of a diminished fourth.

September 1, 2025 at 3:50 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

What does it take for the movements of a suite to belong together?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

What Makes a Suite Hang Together?

One of the earliest definitions of a suite comes from the English lutenist Thomas Mace. In 1676, he wrote that a suite commonly comprises “half a dozen” pieces, the first being a prelude “in the nature of voluntary play” and the rest being dances of various types, “provided they be all in the same key.” He further specifies that “they ought to be something a Kin . . . or to have some kind of Resemblance in their Conceits, Natures, or Humours.”

What does it mean for movements of a suite to be “kin”? Were musicians in Bach’s orbit concerned with this idea of family resemblance across the movements of a suite?

Suite No. 1 in G Major

The Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 opens with a simple chord progression: over an open-G pedal point, the melody B–C–C–B is counterpointed with a tenor voice D–E–F♯–G. This progression becomes a “harmonic paradigm” that returns in varied form to open the Sarabande and the Menuet I. The specific voicing of a G major chord with open G, open D, and B in the soprano returns as a motto across the entire suite.

The slide includes a musical example showing the abstract harmonic paradigm and short excerpts from the opening of the Prelude, Sarabande, and Menuet I. Each example involves an open-G pedal, a melody of B-C-C-B, and a tenor voice that approximately expresses D–E–F♯–G (or a variation thereof).

Suites and Unity: Perspectives from Bach’s Contemporaries

The North German organist Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann wrote in 1706 that the first movement of a suite “is like the proposition . . . from which the Corrente, sarabande, and gigue flow as parts.” His commentary was repeated nearly verbatim by Bach’s cousin Johann Gottfried Walther. These remarks evoke a rhetorical simile, as the assertion of a proposition (propositio) and its division into parts (partitio) are traditional components of classical oration.

Bach may have been familiar with a 1706 treatise by Friedrich Erhardt Niedt that offers instruction in improvising or composing a suite. Niedt recommends beginning with a simple figured-bass progression as a starting point and developing variations that transform it into various dances such an Allemande, Courante, and so on, resulting in a kind of variation-suite. Whether Bach learned this technique from reading or from studying other repertoire, several of his suites have common elements across the movements that foster a sense of unity.

August 26, 2025 at 9:09 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Why have Bach’s Cello Suites been used so widely beyond the concert hall as expressions of humanitarian advocacy?

Links in the comments: to Rostropovich at Checkpoint Charlie and Denys Karachevtsev in the heavily bombarded streets of Kharkiv. #cello #jsbach #classicalmusic #bachcellosuites

Cello Suites as Humanitarian Advocacy
Beyond the concert hall, Bach’s Cello Suites have been played extensively in public settings as expressions of advocacy for peace and an end to human suffering. A prominent example is Mstislav Rostropovich’s impromptu performance at Checkpoint Charlie, days after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Yo-Yo Ma’s performance at the US–Mexico border crossing in 2019 is the subject of a popular children’s book. Oleksandr Osipov’s viral video of the Ukrainian cellist Denys Karachevtsev playing Suite No. 5 in the heavily bombarded streets of Kharkiv was used as a fundraiser for humanitarian aid.

Caption: Mstislav Rostropovich’s 1989 performance at Checkpoint Charlie has been commemorated with a statue. The caption accompanies a grayscale image of Rostropovich, a middle-aged man playing the cello, seated in front of the Berlin Wall, with a crowd of adults and children assembled behind him, listening.
Caption: The book Playing at the Border: A Story of Yo-Yo Ma, written by Joanna Ho and illustrated by Teresa Martinez, centers around the cellist’s 2019 performance at the US–Mexico border crossing. The caption accompanies an image of the book’s cover, which features an illustration of cellist Yo-Y Ma playing, with a racially diverse group of adults and children holding hands behind him, standing in front of the Rio Grande River. The illustration also shows stylized musical notes in the background.

Why The Cello Suites?
Just why the Cello Suites have been used so often as expressions of humanitarian, pacifist, or democratic views is uncertain. Could it be related to the sound of the solo cello, which some may hear as comparable to a human voice? Or does the size and shape of the cello lend itself to creating images and footage that captures the public’s imagination? Or could it be related to a tradition stemming from the cellist Pablo Casals, who popularized the Cello Suites and whose political views led him to flee Francoist Spain and to refuse to perform in countries that recognized the fascist government?

August 23, 2025 at 7:09 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Bach was the first German to compose suites for unaccompanied cello, but he drew from a long tradition of unaccompanied violin music. How did that style influence the Cello Suites?

#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

What Did Bach Borrow from Westhoff and Pisendel?
Whereas Bach was apparently the earliest German composer to explore the solo cello as a polyphonic instrument, in composing for solo violin he was following a well-trodden path. When he first arrived at Weimar, he would have met Johann Paul von Westhoff, one of the most distinguished violinists of the previous generation and composer of an important collection for unaccompanied violin. He likewise had contact with Johann Georg Pisendel, whose Sonata à Violino Solo Senza Baßo (c. 1716) bears a title strikingly similar to the one Bach used in the 1720 manuscript of his sonatas and partitas. What might Bach have learned from the German solo-violin tradition that he incorporated into the Cello Suites?

Pisendel’s Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin, Allegro
The slide shows a musical example excerpted from Pisendel’s sonata. The top staff quotes the solo-violin part, which consists of an arpeggiated texture. The bottom two staves show an implied chordal realization. The caption reads as follows: In this passage, instead of playing the melodies, the violin plays arpeggios across two or more strings. The left hand is fingered chordally, and the slurred bowing provides the arpeggiated realization. The music below shows Pisendel’s violin part (top staff) and the implied chordal realization below. This style of writing is found throughout Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin but also in the Cello Suites.

Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, Prelude
The slide shows a musical example excerpted from Bach’s Prelude to Cello Suite No. 3. The top staff quotes the solo-cello part, which consists of an arpeggiated texture. The bottom two staves show an implied chordal realization. The caption reads as follows: Compare to this climactic passage from the Prelude to Cello Suite No. 3. Over a resonant open-G pedal, the implied upper voices suggest a chain of suspensions.

August 17, 2025 at 1:11 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Watch historical cellist Hervé Douchy perform using the “underhand” bow hold.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfb3...

#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

“Underhand” Cello Bow Hold
Most cellists active during Bach’s lifetime would have played with an “underhand” bow hold that today is used mainly by viola da gamba players. The modern, “overhand” bow hold gradually became the standard cello technique by around 1800. This transition is evidenced by written documents along with drawings and paintings of cellists.
Charles Burney, the British music historian who in the 1770s heard two of Europe’s finest cellists, Antonio Vandini and Markus Heinrich Graul, remarked that both of them “hold the bow in the old-fashioned way, with the hand under it.”
J. J. Quantz remarked in 1752 that “some [cellists] move the bow as it customary on the viola da gamba, that is, instead of a down-stroke from left to right for the principal notes, they make an up-stroke from right to left, beginning from the tip of the bow.” Any cellist curious to explore baroque bows and approaches to slurring and articulation might do well to also experiment with reviving the bow hold that was most widely used during the period.

The slide shows two line drawings of cellists, both shown using the underhand bow hold. The captions are as follows:

Pier Leone Ghezzi, Drawing of Antonio Vandini, mid-eighteenth century.

Pier Leone Ghezzi, Drawing of S. Pietro Sterlichi, 1742.

Attributed to Charles Philips, Portrait of a Gentleman with a Violoncello (detail), c. 1720. This painting shows a cellist using an underhand bow hold.

But many representations of underhand bow holds were also made during this same period

Thomas Gainsborough, The Reb. John Chafy Playing the Violoncello in a Landscape (detail), c. 1750. This painting shows a cellist using an overhand bow hold, with the hand positioned slightly above the frog.

August 6, 2025 at 4:03 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/5xpyad3t
Have a listen to Annlies Schmid, a protégée of Emanuel Feuermann. Her 1960 album is the earliest known recording of Cello Suite No. 6 on a five-string instrument, as it was originally conceived. Can you guess when the practice of playing on a five-string cello was first revived?

Reviving the Five-String Cello
The brilliant Cello Suite No. 6 was originally composed for a five-string instrument that greatly expands the cello’s upper register. Who were the earliest cellists to revive the practice of performing it on a five-string instrument?

Manuscripts and Editions
All but one of the manuscript copies specify “à cinque cordes,” indicating that Cello Suite No. 6 was composed for a five-string cello tuned in fifths. But starting from the earliest editions published in the 1820s, many editions have omitted information about the original instrument for this suite and provide fingerings to execute it on a modern, four-string cello, making recourse to “thumb position” to navigate the high passages. Some editions mentioned the five-string conception of this suite but nevertheless provide fingerings conceived for a four-string cello.
[The slide reproduces an excerpt from a manuscript copied by Anna Magdalena Bach. The excerpt reads “Suitte 6.me a cinq accordes,” which translates as “sixth suite for five strings.” The excerpt also shows the tuning of the five strings, notated in bass clef: C-G-D-A-E.
Below, the slide also reproduces an extract from a published edition edited by Robert Hausmann, dated circa 1891. The excerpt it labeled “Suite VI,” with an indication in German reading “Für ein fünfsaitiges Instrument geschrieben,” which translates as “written for a five-string instrument.” The excerpt also shows the tuning of the five strings, notated in bass clef: C-G-D-A-E.]

Henri Bosmans, Annlies Schmidt, and Amaryllis Fleming
The Dutch cellist Henri Bosmans—then principal of the Concertgebouw Orchestra—commissioned a five-string cello specifically to play Cello Suite No. 6. An anonymous reviewer of his 1893 performance praised the excellent performance, but he nevertheless predicted that five-string cellos would not become commonplace since the added E string is “little in keeping with the character of the cello” and resembles “a baritone singer who found a way to also reproduce high notes from the tenor register.”

A 1960 album by the German cellist Annlies Schmidt-de Neveu, a pupil of Emmanuel Feuermann, is the earliest-known recording to adopt a period-style approach to the Cello Suites, including the use of a five-string instrument for Suite No. 6. Nearly all subsequent recordings by baroque cellists adopt scordatura tuning for Suite No. 5 and use a five-string instrument for Suite No. 6. The British cellist Amaryllis Fleming reportedly recorded Suite No. 6 on a five-string cello for the BBC in the 1960s, but that record appears not to survive.

July 26, 2025 at 8:02 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

The Courante from Cello Suite No. 5 has metric and rhythmic features that distinguish it from those of the other five Cello Suites. How do you prefer to count the beats?
#cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

A French-Style Courante
Most of the Cello Suite’s courantes are written in 3/4 meter and feature sixteenth notes, indicating the influence of the virtuoso, Italianate corrente. The Courante from Suite No. 2, for instance, is nearly a moto perpetuo.
But the courante from Suite No. 5 is a true French-style courante in 3/2 meter, featuring hemiola effects. It begins with counting three half-note beats per bar. Starting in m. 6, it is counted more closely, with three whole-note beats every two bars. And the final bar of each half is counted much faster, a quasi-6/4, with three quarter-note beats per half bar. In Bach’s English Suites, all courantes are notated in 3/2 and feature this 6/4 effect in the final measure of each half.

Counting Hemiola Effects: Courante from Suite No. 5
[The slide reproduces a musical score excerpt comprising the first half of the Courante from Cello Suite No.5 in C Minor. The excerpt uses a variety of note values, primarily dotted-quarter notes and eighth notes, with some double stops and three notes chords. Articulation markings such as slurs and dots are included, as well as two trills. The movement is notated with a time signature of 3/2. In measures 1 through 5, annotations have been added to indicate a counting of three half-note beats per measure, aligning with the time signature. In measures 6 through 11, annotations indicate a "slow count, quasi 3/1," with a counting of three whole-note beats every two measures. In measure 12, the final measure of the excerpt, the annotations indicate a "fast count, quasi 6/4," with three quarter-note beats every half measure.]

July 21, 2025 at 3:58 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

The Cello Suites and Bach’s Obituary
One of the earliest accounts of J. S. Bach’s life and works is a 1754 obituary co-authored by his son C. P. E. Bach and his student Johann Friedrich Agricola. What does the obituary tell us about the Cello Suites?

The Earliest Works List
The obituary includes the first list of J. S. Bach’s output. The easy task was listing the handful of published works: the Clavier-Übung, Goldberg Variations, canonic variations on Vom Himmel hoch, the Schübler Chorales, Musical Offering, and the posthumously published Art of the Fugue.
The more difficult task listing the vast quantity of unpublished music. Focusing on the most notable compositions, they wrote that “the unpublished works of the late Bach are approximately as follows:
(1) Five full years of church pieces, for all the Sundays and holidays;
(2) Many oratorios, Masses, Magnificats, several Sanctus, secular cantatas, serenades, music for birthdays, name days, and funerals, wedding cantatas; and also several comic vocal pieces;
(3) Five passions, of which one is for double chorus;
(4) A few double-chorus motets;
(5) Many free preludes, fugues, and similar pieces for organ, with obbligato pedal
(6) Six trios for the organ with obbligato pedal;
(7) Many preludes on chorales for the organ;
(8) A book of short preludes on most of the hymns of the church, for the organ;
(9) Twice twenty-four preludes and fugues, in all keys, for the clavier;
(10) Six toccatas for the clavier;
(11) Six [English] suites for the same;
(12) Six more of the same, somewhere shorter [i.e. the French Suites]
(13) Six sonatas for the violin, without bass;
(14) Six of the same for the violoncello;
(15) Various concertos for one, two, three, and four harpsichords;
(16) Finally, a mass of other instrumental pieces of all kinds and for all kinds of instruments.

Special Works
The works list emphasizes church music and collections for keyboard and organ. Aside from those genres, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin and the Cello Suites are the only music highlighted for special recognition, rather than lumped into the final “catch all” category.
The genres and individual compositions singled out in the works list probably reflect the special importance attached to them by the composer and transmitted to his students. C. P. E. Bach—co-author of the obituary—owned a manuscript copy of the Cello Suites, which he kept until the end of his life and from which he commissioned at least one subsequent copy (now known as “Source C”). This obituary formed the basis of many subsequent studies of Bach’s life and works, meaning that many people were aware of the existence of Bach’s Cello Suites well before published scores were readily available or before they were regularly performed in concerts.
The slide includes a facsimile reproduced from an eighteenth-century German book, with the following caption: Excerpt from obituary of J. S. Bach, originally published in Lorenz Christoph Mizler’s Musikalische Bibliothek (1754)

July 14, 2025 at 9:00 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

When did Bach compose the Cello Suites? Why is this question so complicated? #cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #newmusic #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello

When Did Bach Compose the Cello Suites?
And why is this question so simple for the Sonatas and Partitas but complicated for the Cello Suites?

Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin
Bach’s title page for his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin is labeled “Libro Primo” and dated 1720. Bach was then employed as Capellmeister and director of chamber music in Cöthen, a position that afforded the time and creative freedom to complete some of his most ambitious instrumental projects.
While accompanying his patron, Prince Leopold, to the spa in Carlsbad (Bohemia) in May–July 1720, Bach copied out his Sonatas and Partitas from earlier composing drafts into the beautiful, calligraphic final manuscript. The paper used for that manuscript was produced near Carlsbad, establishing precisely that the Sonatas and Partitas were completed during that trip.
But what about the Cello Suites?
[The slide includes a facsimile of the title page from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. It reads: Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato. Libro Primo. Da Joh. Seb. Bach. Anno 1720.]

No Autograph Cello Suites Manuscript Survives
But one clue is “Libro Primo” on the violin manuscript. If the Cello Suites were planned as the “Libro Secondo,” that would suggest that they were well underway, if not already complete, by the spring/summer of 1720.
Other manuscript copies of the Cello Suites (known today as Sources A and B) date from the late 1720s. The violinist G. H. L. Schwanberg, who studied with Bach in Leipzig around 1727–28, commissioned a two-part manuscript comprising both the Sonatas and Partitas and the Cello Suites, copied by Anna Magdalena Bach. J. A. P. Kellner likewise copied both works for his own use in 1726.
Some scholars have speculated that Cello Suite No. 6 may have been composed after Bach settled in Leipzig in 1723, given his documented interest in five-string cellos in cantatas he composed there. However, the relationship between the Cello Suites and the Leipzig cantatas is too oblique to override other compelling evidence that the Cello Suites were most likely composed in Cöthen.

July 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Have a listen to baroque violinist Rachel Podger performing Prelude to Cello Suite No. 2: tinyurl.com/3jkrbh7t

Bach . . . Violin Suites??
Playing Bach’s Cello Suites on violin may seem like a new trend, but it is actually a longstanding tradition.

Ferdinand David
The earliest violinist known to perform the Cello Suites on violin is Ferdinand David (1810–73), concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and professor at the Leipzig Conservatory. Around 1866, David published an edition of the Cello Suites transcribed for violin with piano accompaniment intended for students at the Leipzig Conservatory to use as preparation before learning the Sonatas and Partitas.
David performed three movements from Suite No. 5 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus for a New Year’s concert in 1865. An enthusiastic American critic hailed wrote that the suites “are true poems.” But the influential Leipzig critic Yourij von Arnold was less impressed, holding that the Cello Suites “can arouse no great interest (unless it were historical).”
David’s vision of the Cello Suites as appropriate repertoire for advancing violinists may have influenced Shin’ichi Suzuki, who studied in Berlin in the 1920s. The four movements incorporated into the Suzuki violin method have been studied by hundreds of thousands of violin students worldwide.
[The slide reproduces the title page of Ferdinand David’s edition of Bach’s Cello Suites, transcribed for violin with piano accompaniment. It also reproduces one page of the violin part, showing the Allemande from Suite No. 1, transposed to D major and written in treble clef.]

Violin Albums
In the past decade, at least four professional violinists have released albums of the Cello Suites transcribed for violin.
[album covers: Rachel Podger, Johnny Gandelsman, Jorge Jiménez, and Tomás Cotik]

June 22, 2025 at 10:14 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Have a listen to baroque cellist Jessica Korotkin performing her Suite in E Minor: #cello #jsbach #baroque #baroquemusic #newmusic #NewMusicMonday #classicalmusic #cellosuites #cellosuite #bachcellosuites #bachcello
tinyurl.com/k5kdfs8b

If Six Suites Are Not Enough . . .
Cello suites by composers such as Max Reger and Benjamin Britten have long entered the instrument’s repertoire. But what about more recent compositions and albums that drawn inspiration from Bach?

Recent Albums
Cellist-composer Peter Gregson’s album Bach Recomposed (2018) reworks the Cello Suites with looped synth patterns and postminimalist techniques. The album is featured prominently in the soundtracks for the series Bridgerton and the film Blackbird. https://tinyurl.com/yacwt7sz
Mike Block’s album Step into the Void (2020) includes the complete Cello Suites plus a companion album of live free-improvised “companion tracks” created with sound artist Barry Rothman. https://tinyurl.com/5d8p54tp
Preludes (2022) by Julia MacLaine alternates Bach’s six preludes with six corresponding “response” compositions commissioned from Canadian composers representing a cross-section of that country’s multiculturalism. https://tinyurl.com/mr3r684x

New Solo-Cello Music Inspired by Bach
Baroque cellist Jessica Korotkin composed six original suites in baroque style, closely modeled after Bach’s. https://tinyurl.com/k5kdfs8b
Michelle Barzel Ross composed “Quasi una sarabanda,” an evocative solo-cello “homage to the heart and soul of the six Bach Cello Suites,” commissioned and recently recorded by Caitlin Sullivan. https://tinyurl.com/24xs72n3
The image reproduces album covers for Peter Gregson’s Bach Recomposed, Mike Block’s Step Into the Void, Julia MacLaine’s Preludes, and Michelle Barzel Ross’s “Quasi una sarabanda.”

June 19, 2025 at 7:07 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

June 6, 2025 at 3:15 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Yo-Yo Ma addresses the question: "Why do cellists play Bach Suite No. 1 in every movie?" tinyurl.com/4ts2fztd

Bach’s Popular Prelude: How did the Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 become to prevalent in movies and television?

In the lower right corner, there is a green stylized graphic of a cello scroll, with the text “Bach: The Cello Suites, Edward Klorman.”

On Film: Yo-Yo Ma, in a 2015 “Ask Me Anything” event, addressed the question: “Why do cellists play Bach Suite No. 1 in every movie?” This prelude has been used very widely in films, including in Master and Commander (2003), where it represents the sea. Other movies such as The Hangover II (2011) show characters playing the suite. David Bowie learned to play the cello to perform the prelude in the vampire thriller The Hunger (1983).

Family Guy character Meg Griffin plays the prelude in a student recital. Wednesday Addams, in the series premiere of Tim Burton’s Wednesday, plays a cello solo from sheet music for the prelude (although the music actually performed is “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones).

In the lower right, there is a screenshot of the animated character Meg Griffin, playing the cello with a music stand. She is depicted in an auditorium, in front of a stage curtain and illuminated by a spotlight. Below the screenshot, the text reads: “Watch Family Guy clip: https://tinyurl.com/ye27fch4.

June 6, 2025 at 3:14 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Are Bach's courantes always "running," or are they ever more "flowing"?

Courante: Running or Flowing? Known in Italian as "corrente" and in French as "courante," this dance is the second of the four principal movements in a Baroque suite. Although Bach opted for the title "courante" in all six Cello Suites, some examples are more Italianate and other more French in style.

Courante and Courir: The name "courante" derives from a French verb primarily meaning "running" but with other related meanings, including flowing water (eau courante), as in the current of a stream of river. The Leipzig dance master Gottfried Tauber invoked this sense of flowing water, writing in 1717 that "a good courante dancer swims, so to speak, and, as a swift stream of water, shoots away very quickly.”

Courante and the German German Baroque: Johann Mattheson described the courante's "running, lively melody," adding that it expresses "sweet hopefulness [sincel there is something of the hearty, something of longing and also something of the cheerful in this melody.” Bach’s student J. P. Kirnberger contrasted the “lively and light” Italian corrente with the “serious, solid character” of the courante in France and Germany.

June 3, 2025 at 2:21 AM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

Bach’s Fugue in G Minor for Violin and Continuo was written c. 1712, when he was mostly known as an organist. Its virtuoso violin technique incorporates double stops and polyphony, anticipating the style of Bach’s later solo violin and cello fugues.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxh0...

May 27, 2025 at 12:33 PM

Edward Klorman

@eklorman.bsky.social

May 19, 2025 at 9:11 PM

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