Bach Cello Suites

[SonicMan46]

......Anyway but perhaps I need to consider one of the violincello da spalla recordings instead.  Hmm... decisions, decisions.

Yep David - I have the Kuijken recording, as mentioned previously w/ a link to a thread discussing the instrument posted earlier in this thread; just finished reading Antoine's link - the history of these instruments is indeed confusing - 

First, I'd probably suggest that if you like these works, then a set w/ this instrument would be of historic interest (as I do) - and second, I would likely recommend the one that you can obtain at a good price since so far the performances may be similar?  However, these instruments were in a state of evolution and the ones used in recent releases may sound differently and of course the suites would likely be performed w/ different personal interpretations - I'd actually enjoy obtaining the other recording, if the price were right - but there's the rub, I guess -    Dave

[Brian]

DavidW, Kuijken's set is on NML, where I have been enjoying it over the last few days.

[DavidW]

Thanks Brian!  That makes it easy for me... I'll give it a listen.  Think I'll go and save it to a playlist before I forget...

[PaulSC]

I've been considering getting the Kuijken or Badiarov Suites but am still undecided. Kuijken, on NML, is easier to preview. For Badiarov I've just got 30-second samples of each track (at amazon.com). Badiarov's warmer tone attracted me more, initially, but Kuijken's playing seems livelier and more stylish now that I've spent more time with it. I can't quite convince myself I would spend money on either recording if the novelty factor of the violoncello da spalla weren't in play. Both are quite good, but it's a crowded field with more than 80 complete recordings on baroque and modern cello readily available.

I'll bide my time, see if I can sample Badiarov at greater length, and make some decisions about other potential purchases (chiefly Isserlis and the rarely-mentioned Suren Bagratuni <iTunes> on modern instruments, and Wispelwey 1998 and Jaap ter Linden on baroque). Maybe I'll manage to sample Terakado; maybe additional choices featuring da spalla will appear.

Here's a puzzle. Based on all the pictures I've seen, Badiarov plays an instrument with five strings, Kuijken one with four. Does this mean Kuijken recorded the 6th Suite on a four-string instrument?

EDIT - I may have solved my own puzzle. The instrument pictured with Kuijken has four strings but five tuning pegs. So I suspect it can easily be fitted with a fifth string when needed.

[jlaurson]

I've been considering getting ...yaddayadda... make some decisions about other potential purchases (chiefly Isserlis ...

What I don't quite understand: if you're ready to waste your money on Isserlis (from a choice of 80+, as you say), why fuss so much about which of two versions on the pomposa to get?

Here's a puzzle. Based on all the pictures I've seen, Badiarov plays an instrument with five strings, Kuijken one with four. Does this mean Kuijken recorded the 6th Suite on a four-string instrument?

Peg-counting is easier than string-counting.

[PaulSC]

To supply the obvious answer to a probably rhetorical question: Because I think the Isserlis is superior to the Badiarov and the Kuijken.

Edit: Still I hope our different tastes in this matter won't put you off sampling the Bagratuni (if you don't know it already).

[jlaurson]

To supply the obvious answer to a probably rhetorical question: Because I think the Isserlis is superior to the Badiarov and the Kuijken.

Edit: Still I hope our different tastes in this matter won't put you off sampling the Bagratuni (if you don't know it already).

But I thought you had just ascertained that they're two completely different categories of performances, and thus not really in competition?
No one, except a hardy few, would ever argue for a da spalla version as your primary go-to. Even Kuijken doesn't. It's a curiosity for, well, the curious. (I only know the Kuijken; I quite like it both: as a disc of the Cello Suites and as an curiosity-item. http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=2040

So Isserlis would rather have to be better than Queyras or Fournier or Klinger or Lipkind etc.etc.. And that's not considering HIP recordings. For example Wispelwey, HIP or not, would blow Isserlis out of the water any time.

Suren Bagratuni seems rather an out-of-the-way choice. What in particular do you find fascinating about him in the iTunes samples?

[PaulSC]

But I thought you had just ascertained that they're two completely different categories of performances, and thus not really in competition?
No one, except a hardy few, would ever argue for a da spalla version as your primary go-to. Even Kuijken doesn't. It's a curiosity for, well, the curious. (I only know the Kuijken; I quite like it both: as a disc of the Cello Suites and as an curiosity-item. http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=2040

So Isserlis would rather have to be better than Queyras or Fournier or Klinger or Lipkind etc.etc.. And that's not considering HIP recordings. For example Wispelwey, HIP or not, would blow Isserlis out of the water any time.

Oh, I understand all that. I'm not trying to choose a best one out of the versions that I mentioned (or that you mentioned). I'm just trying to decide in each case whether I do or don't like it enough to buy it (although I do consider, among other things, whether a candidate brings something new alongside what I already own). In the case of Queyras and Lipkind, the answer is no. In the case of Klinger, the answer is yes -- I own it.

In other cases, I haven't decided. Neither Wispelwey nor Isserlis blows the other out of the water.

[PaulSC]

Suren Bagratuni seems rather an out-of-the-way choice. What in particular do you find fascinating about him in the iTunes samples?

Overall, I admire Bagratuni's warm-but-focused timbre (although the recorded sound is a bit distant ) and his precise intonation and graceful ornamentation.

He plays with excellent momentum/directionality but uses inflections of both tone and time to good effect -- he projects both the architecture and the rhetoric of the music. I like his singing approach to the Sarabandes, with well-integrated chords, and I like the excitement he generates in the faster dances.

I also feel he projects a convincing character in each movement. His D minor suite seems strongest in this respect. The prelude is tragic and intense, and I love how he handles the filigree gesture that extends the first cadence on the dominant in the Allemande. The Sarabande is filled with longing; he uses/witholds vibrato in all the right places. The minuets are genuinely dance-like, yet they have a dark quality (compare the relatively sunny treatment of the Minuets in the first suite or the Bourees in the third).

I also think he acquits himself well throughout the (samples of the) sixth suite, which I find is the one that most often defeats performers on a four-string (four-peg!) instrument. In the prelude of that suite, he uses echo effects for some of the repeated figures without seeming gimmicky. Other nuances are similarly well judged.

Is that useful (as a guide to my idiosyncratic tastes, if nothing else)?

EDIT: At least, I seem to have talked myself into buying it.

[Bulldog]

So Isserlis would rather have to be better than Queyras or Fournier or Klinger or Lipkind etc.etc.. And that's not considering HIP recordings. For example Wispelwey, HIP or not, would blow Isserlis out of the water any time.

Not being a fan of Wispelwey's Bach, I don't feel he blows any cellist out of the water.

[Antoine Marchand]

Not being a fan of Wispelwey's Bach, I don't feel he blows any cellist out of the water.

I wonder if you have listened to his two (AFAIK) recordings, Don. I think his first try was less "Romantic" than the second one.

[Bulldog]

I wonder if you have listened to his two (AFAIK) recordings, Don. I think his first try was less "Romantic" than the second one.

I have his second recording from 1998 and often found the playing under-projected and just plain weak. 

[PaulSC]

I do find Wispelwey compelling, and I don't mind his often soft-spoken delivery -- it's a concept of cello timbre that works okay for me on a baroque instrument, although it would bother me more in an otherwise romantic-tradition context.

But I've auditioned enough to notice one thing in Wispelwey's playing that I find really bothersome. He has a tendency to play isolated notes much louder or softer than expected, almost as if this were a substitute for ornamentation (which he applies only sparingly). Listen for instance to his Courante from the first suite. At the cadence that rounds off the repeat of the first half, the leading tone at the end of m. 17 is vanishingly soft. And during the second time through the second half, low E in m. 28 is subito fortissimo, which is like a bad joke; this detail alone makes it a performance I won't enjoy revisiting.

[Leon]

Interesting discussion for me since just last night I was thinking of these very same performances, well not all of them, just the da spalla versions and the Lipkind.

I can't get the Kuijken to play on NML for me, an error message comes up.

I did listen to the first suite from Lipkind and liked his tone/take, but am not sure I am  100% sold on the indulgent style, don't know if that will wear well.

So for now, Fournier will continue to rule my cello suite roost, until I decide to drop some $$$ on one of the da spalla recordings.

I am interested - very interested - but I don't need that many recordings of these works; I've already three, Fournier and Casals and Rosti (and only ever listen to Fournier) - so a recording of more recent vintage would be nice to have, but not more than two more, I think - one da spalla and maybe, Lipkind, or someone else entirely. 

There seem to be a bunch of new recordings to choose from.

[SonicMan46]

Just added the Dmitry Badiarov set to my 'small' collection of these works - have not done any comparisons w/ my Kuijken set but either is certainly a nice addition for a different instrument - 

[Bulldog]

I can't get the Kuijken to play on NML for me, an error message comes up.

I hope you keep trying.  I just finished listening to the Kuijken on NML - didn't have any problems.

[Leon]

I hope you keep trying.  I just finished listening to the Kuijken on NML - didn't have any problems.

Well, neither did I just now - weird that last night I got the error.  It is reasurring that it was temporary since the same message appeared for several other items.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Bulldog]

Well, neither did I just now - weird that last night I got the error.  It is reasurring that it was temporary since the same message appeared for several other items.

Thanks for the heads-up.

No problem.  Temporary errors are not unusual on NML.  Sometimes when I click on "next page", the error thing shows up.

[PaulSC]

Here is a list of 108 recordings of the Bach Cello Suites, with an indication of which ones can be auditioned in full at NML or previewed in excerpts at iTunes or Amazon USA. (Items in the NML are normally previewable at classicsonline.)

Bach Cello Suites

The notes column includes sporadic subjective assessments that may be of no interest to anyone but me. (I suppose the same could be said of the rest of the document!) At any rate these notes are too selective/sparse to be taken as value judgments across the field -- I have a slightly amorphous top-20, but you'd never be able to deduce it from this document...

Criteria for inclusion:
- previewable online
- performances on baroque and modern(ized) cello only
- complete cycles only (with a few exceptions, e.g. one suite missing, or one volume in a set I trust is soon to be completed)

Determining label and year of release is tricky for items that have been issued multiple times. I didn't dig deep for info when it wasn't readily available.

Things I learned:

The search string "bach cello" casts a wide net, but you also need "bach violoncello," especially for French recordings. "Bach 1007" is useful as well.

There are many very good recordings of this music, several in the great-to-transcendent range, and a few downright wretched ones. These don't always map intuitively to the obscurity/celebrity of the performer. (Often, yes, but not always.)

There are more transcriptions than you'd imagine -- viola, lute, bass, guitar, and violin of course, but also: gamba, electric guitar, harp, several marimba recordings (some rather nice), harp (disappointing), tuba, french horn, trumpet, flute, recorder, recorder ensemble, bassoon, banjo (true!), and arpegina (a novel addition to the violin-family), plus arrangements for piano by Godowsky that stray further from the source.

[Taneyev]

Well, what can you expect from that damn little Lithuanian Godowsky?. He respect nothing and nobody. He had a compulsion to arrange and transcribe the most difficult way possible with the only purpose of torture his fellow pianists.