Bach Cello Suites

[DieNacht]

Lots of expertise here - I only own a modest two versions, Casals and Zeuthen, and like them both a lot.

But may I ask: if you were only to choose 4 versions to illustrate the scope of the works and sample the best of various individual playing styles - what would those be, even on a sketchy level ?

[jlaurson]

Lots of expetise here - I only own a modest two versions, Casals and Zeuthen, and like them both a lot.

But may I ask: if you were only to choose 4 versions to illustrate the scope of the works and sample the best of various individual playing styles - what would those be, even of a sketchy level ?

#1 Fournier, DG Bach, Cello Suites Pierre Fournier, Archiv Regal, patrician... the account against I must measure all others. http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2005/01/dip-your-ears-no-25.html	#2 Wispelwey, Channel Classics Bach, Cello Suites Peter Wispelwey, Channel Classics HIP, lean, second choice unrelated to HIP-ness http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2004/07/dip-your-ears-no-4.html
#3 Lipkind, edel Bach, Cello Suites Gavriel Lipkind, edel Romantic, individual, strange, tantalizing... http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=260	#4 Kuijken, Accent Bach, Cello Suites (Viola Pomposa) Sigiswald Kuijken, Accent Not just different, but very good. Occupies the second 'HIP' spot, thereby keeping Paolo Beschi (Winter & Winter) out of this list. http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2011/10/bach-suites-shouldered.html

#5 Queyras, Harmonia Mundi



Bach, Cello Suites
Jean Guihen Queyras, Harmonia Mundi

My favorite modern version. If it's not in the Top 4 for THIS purpose,
then only because it's basically the 21st century version of the Fournier...
and I cannot not include Fournier.

http://www.weta.org/oldfmblog/?p=1653

[prémont]

Lots of expetise here - I only own a modest two versions, Casals and Zeuthen, and like them both a lot.

But may I ask: if you were only to choose 4 versions to illustrate the scope of the works and sample the best of various individual playing styles - what would those be, even of a sketchy level ?

My choices to day would be:


Dmitri Badiarov (Ramée) noble and dancing

Ralph Kirshbaum (Virgin) unbelievably beautiful

Morten Zeuthen (Danish Classico) spirited and dancing


No. four would be more difficult to choose, I tend to say: 

Ophelie Gaillard (Aparte - her second and recent recording) or Henri Demarquette (FAE)

[prémont]

Ah yes, the Neikrug recording. Well, he plays with very heavy bow pressure and takes the most aggressive interpretative approach I've ever heard to this music. Not a performance I particularly enjoy..

Recently I acquired vol. one of the Neikrug set. It is a live recording and this may be the reason why the playing is rather laboured and agressive, as if he had past his prime at the time of recording. I do not intend to acquire vol.two.

[Opus106]

My choices to day would be:

Dmitri Badiarov (Ramée) noble and dancing

Morten Zeuthen (Danish Classico) spirited and dancing

Dancing, you say? I will have to check those out. It has taken me, a Bach fanatic, all of 5.5 years to get to grips with the cello suites. Only a couple of weeks back, when I listened to one or two each morning, did I start appreciating them. All this time, and to some extent even now, it doesn't feel that I'm listening to Bach at all (so much so that I occasionally tend to take sides with that Australian musicologist who claims that these were written by AMB ). The only recording I have (Fournier) didn't help, and sampling HIP versions -- which I assumed would do the trick, because I thought adopting a more 'agile' playing style akin the solo violins works would appeal to me -- only shocked me!  I think the main reason why I like them now is because of my exposure to the keyboard partitas and further exposure to baroque suites in general. I can listen to the dance rhythms now in suites as well.

[Mandryka]

My choices to day would be:


Dmitri Badiarov (Ramée) noble and dancing

Ah right -- I'd better try that one! I know Kirshbaum's and I like it. It's beautiful and it's inspired and spontaneous. And I thought he made a good job of articulating the big complicated movements.  Morten Zeuthen's is on spotify so that's easy to get hold of.

I very much like the way Kirshbaum plays the 6th -- the crazy raga-style the prelude. That's one of the things about Casals that I like the most.

The high points for me  are Casals in the prelude to 6,  and the prelude and sarabande in 2. And Starker (Mercury) in 5. Which is your favourite 5?

[Mandryka]

5.5 years

That's not so long really

[Opus106]

That's not so long really

Even for a singular set of works out of tens? It stood out larger and redder than a sore thumb.

[DavidRoss]

I agree wholeheartedly with Fournier, Wispelwey, & Queyras.  Saw your review of Lipkind some time ago and was intrigued but haven't heard it.  How does he compare with Gastineau?  And I like Beschi but haven't heard Kuijken.

Others I would not want to be without include Tortelier (back in print, last I knew) and (gasp!) YoYo Ma's second recording, taking more interpretive liberties and with broader tempos than the first.

And one of those that gets the most play around here is an oddity and incomplete: Edgar Meyer's selection of suites transcribed for double bass.

It's hard to imagine taking any time at all to "come to grips" with these suites.  I loved them from the first.  It's also hard to imagine them not sounding like Bach to someone, as they seem as quintessentially Bachian to me as the violin sonatas & partitas or the Goldbergs or ... well, you name it.

[SonicMan46]

My choices to day would be:

Dmitri Badiarov (Ramée) noble and dancing

Ralph Kirshbaum (Virgin) unbelievably beautiful

Morten Zeuthen (Danish Classico) spirited and dancing

No. four would be more difficult to choose, I tend to say: 

Ophelie Gaillard (Aparte - her second and recent recording) or Henri Demarquette (FAE)

Hi Premont - thanks for the listing; now I have 6 sets of these works (modest I guess for some -  ) - but I do not have a lady cellist - I see that Ophelie Gaillard recorded these works in 2000 & 2011 - you're recommending the newer recording (of course, the other may be OOP or overpriced?) - have you heard both of her performances and prefer the second one?  Just asking - Dave

For those interested in Badiarov, he plays a cello da spalla - below is a post that I left earlier this year in the 'Listening Thread' - having at least one of these 'shoulder cello' sets in your collection of these works is certainly a consideration - 

P.S. - again look in the 'Old Instrument Thread' for discussion of this interesting instrument - link given a page or so back!

Bach, JS - Cello Suites w/ Dmitry Badiarov on a 'violoncello da spalla' made by him - an amazing character, both instrument maker & performer - informative booklet notes which concentrate on evolution of the instrument from Bach's times and the various strings used, i.e. a nice supplement to other CD liner notes of these works which discuss the individual suites; plus, dedication to Sigiswald Kuijken, one of his teachers. 


 

[jlaurson]

I agree wholeheartedly with Fournier, Wispelwey, & Queyras.  Saw your review of Lipkind some time ago and was intrigued but haven't heard it.  How does he compare with Gastineau?  And I like Beschi but haven't heard Kuijken.

Gastineau is very, very different from Lipkind... dour, almost... straight, unsmiling, but not ever not good. (Except that that's not enough, given the many other recordings available.)

Gastinel's account on naïve, the latest of the batch, offers a forward, comparatively lean cello sound; not as happily booming as Schiff / EMI, not as resonant as Lipkind and Queyras, yet in a more subtly reverberant acoustic, with more air around her cello and at a greater distance to the listener. She sounds busier than those two, without actually being faster. She uses less ornamentation than her male colleagues and is, especially compared to Lipkind, less free-wheeling. In the Sarabande of Suite 4 she doesn't slur through most of the opening. Like Harnoncourt, she taps the first double stop, but doesn't 'hold' it all the way to the next.

She can't be said to be un-involving, but she is more matter-of-fact (something that is put into perspective when compared to the truly somber Isserlis). Details are very audible in this combination of clean playing and clean sound, but so is – unfortunately – her very pointed inhaling. It is notable to the point where I can detect her recording out of all the others within seconds, just on the account of those breaths. Less impressive than her male colleagues at first, Gastinel becomes dearer and dearer upon second and third hearing. The extraneous noises, though, might be enough to turn me off for good. Unlike the other reviewed recordings (except Rostropovich), Gastinel's Suites are not arranged in order but, to fit them on two CDs, include Suites 1, 4, and 5 on disc one, Suites 2, 3, and 6 on disc two.

[DavidRoss]

Gastineau is very, very different from Lipkind... dour, almost... straight, unsmiling, but not ever not good. (Except that that's not enough, given the many other recordings available.)

I see I can hear some of Lipkind on youtube.  Thanks for the recommendation, Jens! 

OT question: as the US election circus revs up, do you ever miss DC? 

[prémont]

Hi Premont - thanks for the listing; now I have 6 sets of these works (modest I guess for some -  ) - but I do not have a lady cellist - I see that Ophelie Gaillard recorded these works in 2000 & 2011 - you're recommending the newer recording (of course, the other may be OOP or overpriced?) - have you heard both of her performances and prefer the second one?  Just asking - Dave

I am very much impressed by Ophelia Gaillard´s second recording 2011. As to her first recording 2000 it is OOP, but I have been fortunate to get hold of one of the two CDs. Have not listened to it yet (too much else to listen to). In the week to come I shall listen to it to be able to answer your question.

[prémont]

Dancing, you say? I will have to check those out. It has taken me, a Bach fanatic, all of 5.5 years to get to grips with the cello suites. Only a couple of weeks back, when I listened to one or two each morning, did I start appreciating them. All this time, and to some extent even now, it doesn't feel that I'm listening to Bach at all (so much so that I occasionally tend to take sides with that Australian musicologist who claims that these were written by AMB ). The only recording I have (Fournier) didn't help, and sampling HIP versions -- which I assumed would do the trick, because I thought adopting a more 'agile' playing style akin the solo violins works would appeal to me -- only shocked me!  I think the main reason why I like them now is because of my exposure to the keyboard partitas and further exposure to baroque suites in general. I can listen to the dance rhythms now in suites as well.

It also took me some time to grip the cello suites, but now I can not live without them. In a way I find Fournier outdated despite his regal approach (sorry, Jens). Of the great "old" French cellist´s recordings I much prefer the visionary Gendron´s. If you - like me - put much emphasis on the dancing character of Bach´s music, Zeuthen and Heinrich Schiff (EMI double) might be to your taste.

[SonicMan46]

It also took me some time to grip the cello suites, but now I can not live without them. In a way I find Fournier outdated despite his regal approach (sorry, Jens). Of the great French cellist´s recordings I much prefer the visionary Gendron´s. If you - like me - put much emphasis on the dancing character of Bach´s music, Zeuthen and Heinrich Schiff (EMI double) might be to your taste.

Same w/ me concerning some of these older recordings, i.e. I had Fournier but replaced his performances w/ Gendron; all of my other sets date from the early 90s (Bylsma) to later including some of the others mentioned in previous posts, along w/ the two performances on the shoulder cello. 

[Opus106]

It also took me some time to grip the cello suites, but now I can not live without them. In a way I find Fournier outdated despite his regal approach (sorry, Jens). Of the great French cellist´s recordings I much prefer the visionary Gendron´s. If you - like me - put much emphasis on the dancing character of Bach´s music, Zeuthen and Heinrich Schiff (EMI double) might be to your taste.

Those suggestions are much appreciated. The Fournier was one of the earliest discs I bought, simply because it had music by Bach and it was cheaper than 2-disc sets usually are here.

[Marc]

It's been some time since I last listened to the cello suites, but I agree with Premont concerning Zeuthen, Kirshbaum and Badiarov (the latter has more 'Schwung' than Kuijken).
And I've always enjoyed Maurice Gendron and Anner Bylsma (1979 recording).

About Wispelwey: compared to his first recording, I find his latter (mentioned by Jens) a bit too shallow.

[Mandryka]

Lipkind is an interesting suggestion. I sampled parts of 5 and 6 on spotify and it is absolutely clear that he thinks he has new stuff to say in this music -- he sounds like no one else I have heard. If you don't believe me then listen to the Allamade of 6 where he does indescribable things -- a sort of air-raid siren effect. Very striking. The tempo is slow -- does he tell enough of a story to stop the music falling apart?  I'm not sure he does.

The prelude to 6 was a bit less wild and free and spontaneously unchained than I like. You don't feel as though you're falling off the edge of a cliff like you do with Casals and  there's not the sense same of relief and resolution  at the end. And there were some annoying over-emphatic echo effects at the start.

In the prelude to 5 his articulation made the fugue sound slightly trivial compared with my beloved Janos Straker, or even Casals or Bylsma or Kirshbaum. But that is setting a high standard.

The cello is on the fat, round, baritonal side in the low notes. I prefer a leaner, tighter, wiry sound myself -- Perenyi is my ideal cellist sonically. But that's maybe not so important.

I'll certainly listen to more of it -- it would be fun if anyone else was exploring it so we could compare reactions.

[Mandryka]

Anner Bylsma (1979 recording).
.

IS that the first one? If so then yes -- very special. It's been a gruff old friend now for over 20 years.

[prémont]

Which is your favourite 5?

No. 5 is my favorite among the suites and the first suite I listen to when I get hold of a new recording. But again you put me an impossible question when asking me which one is my favorite no. 5,  since I have 120 sets to choose from. Well because I am kind of completist in this matter, but also because I think that all aspects of the music can not be displayed in one performance. Variety within sensible limits is IMO a rewarding thing, and there are only a few of these 120 sets which are more or less unlistenable first and foremost because of insufficient technical powers, e.g. Cassado(Vox) or Navarra (Calliope). But I very much appreciate the timeless style of Starker and the passionate Casals.

Lipkind is one of the few I have avoided other than Maisky, having read many times, that their approach is unashamed romantic. Add to this that Lipkind is very expensive, and I can not find out if it is hybrid or exclusively SACD.