Cello Suite No 1 in G

J. S. Bach’s cello suites inspire budding amateurs and seasoned professionals alike. Their technical challenges are not so overwhelming as to deter the novice. Yet once these hurdles are overcome, infinite decisions regarding tempo, articulation, ornamentation, and phrasing keep even a virtuoso engaged for life (witness Rostropovich or Yo-Yo Ma). Like the works for solo violin or the keyboard suites, the cello suites endeavor to synthesize diverse trends and bring an instrumental genre to its highest level of perfection. Essentially without direct precedent, Bach crafted a body of solo cello works around 1720 that forever defined the genre and brought the Baroque cello on par with its more popular cousin, the viola da gamba.
The suite’s core components—allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue—were established well before Bach. He introduces diverse “modern” dances, such as minuets and bourrées, as well as an opening prélude. In Bach’s hands a prélude has outgrown its original function (which was to check tuning and “warm up” in the key) and often overshadows the dances in scope. Consider the Suite in C Major, whose prélude opens with complete simplicity: a falling scale and arpeggio that define the key. From there Bach gradually widens the focus with undulating contours, introducing more skipping motion until the climactic dominant pedal, where the cellist rocks hypnotically between low G and various harmonies high above. The prélude’s very last gesture mimics the opening, creating a satisfying sense of completion before the dances have even begun!
The following movements may have shed much of their connection to actual dances. However, their spirit lives on through Bach’s meticulous phrasing and rhythmic verve. The allemande starts with a more florid version of the prélude’s opening measure and continues with an infectious combination of long and short rhythms. Athleticism drives the courante from start to finish, while the sarabande turns inward with an initial deflection toward the subdominant key. Both bourrées are fleet and full of simple charm, though in those two aspects they are upstaged by the vigorous gigue. Beyond just filling the final position, this gigue summarizes much of what thrills us in the suite as a whole: virtuosity, rhythmic variety, chromaticism, tense phrases built over pedal tones—it’s all here on display.

(c) Jason Stell