[6/12/2011] Gotta dance -- Bach the suite-maker, Part 3 (continued)

The video version of Mstislav's 1991 recording of the Bach cello suites is all available on YouTube, but isn't embeddable. The performances are fascinating but in some ways problematic. Probably the best part of the video presentation, though, is Rostropovich's commentaries, ruminations, and demonstrations filmed during the recording project.


WHY DON'T WE PROCEED BY JUST LISTENING
TO SUITE NO. 3 STRAIGHT THROUGH?

In that 1984 booklet essay, János Starker has fond memories of making his famous Mercury recording of the Bach suites, his second complete traversal. (He had recorded four of the six suites for Period in 1951, and in 1984 honestly couldn't recall why Nos. 2 and 5 weren't recorded. Then in 1958, when he was recording for EMI, he did a complete cycle that, inexplicably was never released in the U.S. (We're going to hear a few excerpts from it.) Starker made a number of truly splendid recordings for Mercury, including the set of Bach suites. Here's what he had to say about the project:

IN 1965 Mercury Records, with a triumverate at its apex, Wilma Cozart, Robert Fine, and Harold Lawrence, asked me to record the definitive (?) version of the Bach Cello Suites. These three people, whose contributions to the record industry have rarely if ever been matched, guaranteed the standards I was aiming at, and I felt I was ready. Definitive Version? Nonsense. High level? Yes. I was and am satisfied with the results.

As well he should have been. Here's the Third Suite from that set.

BACH: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3 in C, BWV 1009
i. Praeludium [0:00]
ii. Allemande [4:10]
iii. Courante [7:04]
iv. Sarabande [9:14]
v. Bourrée I-II [12:31]
vi. Gigue [15:42]

János Starker, cello. Mercury, recorded 1965


NOW THERE'S ANOTHER SCHOOL OF THOUGHT . . .

In 1991, after ducking the challenge for decades, decades in which he was clearly the world's dominant cellist, at a time when the competition was a lot stiffer than it is now, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) finally recorded the Bach cello suites, for video as well as audio. In the absorbing video presentation that accompanies the video version, virtually a musical autobiography and testament (really, no music lover can afford not to see it), he voices disapproval of the common cellist habit of making melodies out of the note and chord progressions with which Bach constructed the suites' preludes in particular.

It's not so much the heaving and hauling, the pushing and pulling, the stretching and squeezing, or even the rhetorical exaggerations and flourishes that he objects to. It's his conviction that the this sing-songy format misses the point of the music, which is a (for him) mesmerizing pattern of building and releasing and otherwise playing with harmonic tension. This sounds abstract but is much less so as he demonstrates -- not with his cello, but at the piano.

I think the point will be made by listening to Rostropovich's Prelude to the Third Suite alongside the performance from the 1992 Starker-BMG recording, from which we've heard a number of the dance movements from the cello suites. They had become if anything more vivid and zestful in the 1992 recording, but there's no question that once you've been alerted to the Rostropovich objection, you can't help noticing that the 1992 Prelude is even more extreme than Starker's earlier recordings.

BACH: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3 in C, BWV 1009:
No. 1, Preludio

Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. EMI, recorded March 1991
János Starker, cello. BMG, recorded June 1992

"Very French" is how I recall Rostropovich describing (not fondly) this way of playing the Bach suites. I'm sure it didn't carry much weight with him that the dance-based suite is by origin French. It did occur to me that some of my favorrite recordings of the suites are by a storied line of great French cellists: Pierre Fournier (1906-1985, DG Archiv), Paul Tortelier (1914-1990, EMI), and Maurice Gendron (1920-1990, Philips). They do all do what Rostropovich complains about, they nevertheless give quite lovely -- and quite different -- performances, which I thought it might be fun to hear.

BACH: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3 in C, BWV 1009:
No. 1, Preludio

Pierre Fournier, cello. DG Archiv, recorded Dec. 21-22, 1960
Paul Tortelier, cello. EMI, recorded Apr. 14-26, 1982
Maurice Gendron, cello. Philips, recorded 1964

Before we move on to the other movements, here's something different: the Prelude played an octave higher on the viola. Violists have so little repertory they can call their own, and the Bach suites adapt readily enough to their instrument that they frequently appropriate them, and a number of violists have recorded them. This is a version I happen to have on CD.

BACH: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3 in C, BWV 1009:
No. 1, Preludio

Barbara Westphal, viola. Bridge, recorded c1998

THE REST OF THE SUITE

A REMINDER OF WHERE TO FIND OUR
SUITE MOVEMENT PREVIEW SAMPLES

Sarabande, bourrée: Part 1
Allemande, courante, gigue: Part 2

ii. ALLEMANDE

Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. EMI, recorded March 1991
János Starker, cello. EMI, recorded May 22-23, 1958

iii. COURANTE

Gaspar Cassado, cello. Vox, recorded 1957
Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. EMI, recorded March 1991

iv. SARABANDE

Gaspar Cassado, cello. Vox, recorded 1957
Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. EMI, recorded March 1991

v. BOURÉE I-II

Yuli Turovsky, cello. Chandos, recorded Aug. 19-22, 1991
János Starker, cello. EMI, recorded May 22-23, 1958

vi. GIGUE

Gaspar Cassado, cello. Vox, recorded 1957
Yuli Turovsky, cello. Chandos, recorded Aug. 19-22, 1991


FINALLY, I THOUGHT WE'D HEAR THAT RECORDING
STARKER MADE WITH HIS 60TH BIRTHDAY LOOMING

The recording was produced, by the way, by Harold Lawrence, one of the members of that old Mercury "triumvirate" Starker wrote about with such respect and affection in his booklet essay.

BACH: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3 in C, BWV 1009
i. Praeludium [0:00]
ii. Allemande [4:04]
iii. Courante [8:03]
iv. Sarabande [11"06]
v. Bourrée I-II [15:29]
vi. Gigue [18:51]

János Starker, cello. Sefel, recorded in Bloomington, Indiana, 1983-84


AND MORE-THAN-FINALLY, HERE'S A SPECIAL
BONUS: THE THIRD SUITE ON THE GUITAR

Not just on the guitar, but a guitar in the hands of the great Andrés Segovia.

BACH-SEGOVIA: Suite for Solo Cello No. 3, BWV 1009,
transposed from C major to A major
i. Praeludium
ii. Allemande
iii. Courante
iv. Sarabande
v. Bourrée I-II
vi. Gigue

Andrés Segovia, guitar. American Decca/DG, recorded in New York, April 1961


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