Sunday Classics: Gotta dance -- Bach the suite-maker, Part 3

János Starker (born 1924) plays the Prelude of the Bach Cello Suite No. 3 at a recital in Tokyo, July 29, 1988. For a markedly different approach, considerably less inclined to make songlike phrases out of the writing, watch Mstislav Rostropovich. (We'll be hearing his performance later.)

"One night in my studio it dawned on me that in the year of Orwell, 1984, I will be sixty years old. For pianists, violinists, and especially conductors, sixty denotes a possible time of maturity. For cellists it represents the outer limits of physical ability to handle the instrumental demands."

-- János Starker (February 1984), in the booklet
with his 1983-84 Sefel recording of the Bach cello suites

by Ken

Before we proceed, I think we should note that when János Starker wrote his 1984 booklet account of his long relationship with the Bach cello suites, dreading the imminent arrival of his 60th birthday, he probably wasn't imagining giving the performance we saw at the top of this post (several weeks after his 64th birthday), let alone that he would make yet another complete recording of the complete Bach, the one from which we've heard a number of movements in Part 1 (Friday night) and Part 2 (last night) of this series, in 1992!

In the course of Parts 1 and 2 we took a quick look at five of the basic dance types that occur most frequently in Bach's suites (or partitas, or overtures, forms that were essentially interchangeable in his time), bearing in mind that he wrote them for orchestra, for keyboard solo (notably the six French Suites, the six English Suites, and the six keyboard partitas), and for solo cello, violin, and lute. Friday night we test-drove the sarabande and bourrée, and last night the allemande, courante, and gigue.

Of the dance movements that Bach incorporated frequently in his suites, I think the only ones we haven't touched on are the gavotte and menuet. This was partly because I think they're more likely to be familiar to listeners for their continued use in the classical era, but also because we actually didn't need them for our destination today. With the weighting of the examples toward the six cello suites, you may have guessed that that was our destination, and I even let slip a hint Friday night that it's the C major Suite, No. 3, toward which we were headed.

It's almost impossible to generalize about the format of Bach's many suites for diverse instruments (orchestra, keyboard, solo violin, solo cello, lute), but generally there's a prelude of some sort followed by a selection of dance movements, typically five. He also felt free to include a "ringer" -- an unexpected nondance movement, the most dramatic instance being the monumental Chaconne of the Violin Partita No. 2. The Cello Suite No. 3 could hardly be more expected in its formal plan, with six movements: prelude, allemande, couratne, sarabande, bourrée(s), gigue.

I suppose, though, that we should say something about those preludes, though here again it's impossible to generalize. Bach after all could do anything he damn pleased -- including, for example, starting off by dashing of a descending C major scale. (Watch János Starker's performance of the Prelude to No. 3 above.)

One thing I thought we might do is the same thing we did with a couple of the dance-type suite movements: listen first to a Stokowski orchestral arrangement alongside the Bach original. So why don't we do that?

BACH: Partita for Solo Violin No. 3 in E, BWV 1006:
No. 1, Preludio

orchestral version arr. Stokowski
Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded August 1957

original version for solo violin
Ruggiero Ricci, violin. Westminster/MCA, recorded c1966


FOR MORE ON THE PRELUDES, AND MORE ABOUT
AND OF BACH'S CELLO SUITE NO. 2, CLICK HERE

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