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The six Cello Suites,
BWV The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2 ...
1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied
cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
by
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
(1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–1723, when he served as '' Kapellmeister'' in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was ''Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso'' (Suites for cello solo without bass). As usual in a Baroque musical suite, after the prelude which begins each suite, all the other movements are based around
baroque dance Baroque dance is dance of the Baroque era (roughly 1600–1750), closely linked with Baroque music, theatre, and opera. English country dance The majority of surviving choreographies from the period are English country dances, such as those i ...
types;Wittstruck, Anna.
"Dancing with J.S. Bach and a Cello – Introduction"
Stanford University. ''Stanford.edu''. 2012. the cello suites are structured in six movements each: prelude,
allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
,
courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
, sarabande, two
minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...
s or two
bourrée The bourrée ( oc, borrèia; also in England, borry or bore) is a dance of French origin and the words and music that accompany it. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it i ...
s or two
gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...
s, and a final
gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...
. Gary S. Dalkin of MusicWeb International called Bach's cello suites "among the most profound of all classical music works" and
Wilfrid Mellers Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer. Early life Born in Leamington, Warwickshire, Mellers was educated at the local Leamington College and later won a scholarship to Dow ...
described them in 1980 as "
Monophonic music In music, monophony is the simplest of musical textures, consisting of a melody (or "tune"), typically sung by a single singer or played by a single instrument player (e.g., a flute player) without accompanying harmony or chords. Many folk ...
wherein a man has created a dance of God". Due to the works' technical demands,
étude An étude (; ) or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapid ...
-like nature, and difficulty in interpretation because of the non-annotated nature of the surviving copies, the cello suites were little known and rarely publicly performed until they were recorded by Pablo Casals (1876–1973) in the early 20th century. They have since been performed and recorded by many renowned cellists and have been transcribed for numerous other instruments; they are considered some of Bach's greatest musical achievements.Proms 2015. Prom 68: Bach – Six Cello Suites
''
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. 5 September 2015.


History

An exact chronology of the suites (regarding both the order in which the suites were composed and whether they were composed before or after the solo violin sonatas) cannot be completely established. Scholars generally believe that—based on a comparative analysis of the styles of the sets of works—the cello suites arose first, effectively dating the suites earlier than 1720, the year on the title page of Bach's
autograph An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word ''autograph'' comes from Ancient Greek (, ''autós'', "self" and , ''gráphō'', "write"), and can mean more specifically: Gove, Philip B. (ed.), 1981. ''Webster's Third New Inter ...
of the violin sonatas. The suites were not widely known before the early 20th century. It was Pau Casals who first began to popularize the suites, after discovering
Friedrich Grützmacher Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Grützmacher (1 March 1832 – 23 February 1903) was a noted German cellist and composer in the second half of the 19th century. He composed mostly for cello (including several concertos and many technical studies), but a ...
's edition in a thrift shop in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
in 1889 when he was 13. Although Casals performed the suites publicly, it was not until 1936, when he was 60 years old, that he agreed to record them, beginning with Suites Nos. 2 and 3, at Abbey Road Studios in London. The other four were recorded in Paris: 1 and 6 in June 1938, and 4 and 5 in June 1939. Casals became the first to record all six suites; his recordings are still available and respected today. In 2019, the Casals recording was selected by the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
for preservation in the
National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservati ...
as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The suites have since been performed and recorded by many cellists.
Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma ('' Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...
won the 1985 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his album ''Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites''.
János Starker János Starker (; ; July 5, 1924 – April 28, 2013) was a Hungarian-American cellist. From 1958 until his death, he taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he held the title of Distinguished Professor. Starker is consider ...
won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance for his fifth recording of ''Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites''.


Manuscript

Unlike with Bach's solo violin sonatas, no autograph manuscript of the Cello Suites survives, making it impossible to produce modern
urtext Urtext (, from ''ur-'' "primordial" and ''text'' "text", ) may refer to: * Urtext (biblical studies), the text that is believed to precede both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text * Urtext edition An urtext edition of a work of classical mu ...
performing editions. Analysis of secondary sources, including a hand-written copy by Bach's second wife, Anna Magdalena, has produced presumably authentic editions, although critically deficient in the placement of slurs and other articulations, and devoid of basic performance markings such as bowings and dynamics. As a result, the texts present performers with numerous problems of interpretation. German cellist Michael Bach has stated that he believes the manuscripts of the suites by Anna Magdalena Bach are accurate. According to his analysis, the unexpected positioning of the slurs corresponds closely to the harmonic development, which confirm his theory. His theory is not universally accepted. The most recent studies into the relationships among the four manuscripts shows that Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript almost certainly was not copied directly from her husband's holograph, but from a lost intervening source. If confirmed, the slurs in the manuscript would not come from Bach himself, and would not be clues to their interpretation. Recent research has suggested that the suites were not necessarily written for the familiar cello played between the legs (''da gamba''), but an instrument played rather like a violin, on the shoulder ('). Variations in the terminology used to refer to musical instruments during this period have led to modern confusion, and the discussion continues about what instrument "Bach intended", and even whether he intended any instrument in particular.
Sigiswald Kuijken Sigiswald Kuijken (; born 16 February 1944) is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on period and original instruments. Biography Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble ...
and Ryo Terakado have both recorded the complete suites on this "new" instrument, known today as a violoncello or viola da spalla; reproductions of the instrument have been made by luthier Dmitry Badiarov.


Editions

The cellist Edmund Kurtz published an edition in 1983, which he based on facsimiles of the manuscript by Anna Magdalena Bach, placing them opposite each printed page. It was described as "the most important edition of the greatest music ever written for the instrument".


Arrangements

Bach transcribed at least one of the suites, Suite No. 5 in C minor, for lute. An autograph manuscript of this version exists as BWV 995. Using the Bach edition prepared by cellist Johann Friedrich Dotzauer and published by
Breitkopf & Härtel Breitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf. The catalogue currently contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on ...
in 1826, Robert Schumann wrote arrangements with piano accompaniment for all six Bach cello suites.Altena, James A.
Review of 'Schumann: Chamber Music Vol 2 - Cello And Piano / Ensemble Villa Musica'
'' Fanfare''. 2011. Reprinted at ''
ArkivMusic ArkivMusic, Inc. is a Tennessee-based online classical music retailer, specializing in the distribution of CDs and DVDs. ArkivMusic opened its online store in February 2002. In addition to their inventory of readily available CDs, the ArkivCD r ...
''. Schumann's publisher accepted his arrangements of the Bach violin sonatas in 1854, but rejected his Bach cello-suite arrangements. His only cello-suite arrangement surviving is the one for Suite No. 3, discovered in 1981 by musicologist
Joachim Draheim Joachim Draheim (born in 1950) is a German musicologist, music teacher and classical pianist. Life and career Born in Berlin, Draheim studied classical philology, history and musicology in Heidelberg. He received his doctorate with the thesis "S ...
in an 1863 transcription by cellist
Julius Goltermann :''Julius Goltermann should not be confused with Georg Goltermann (1824–1898), the composer of eight cello concertos.'' Johann August Julius Goltermann (15 July 1825 – 4 April 1876) was a 19th-century German cellist and music professor. L ...
."Schumann Bach Suite Accompaniments, Summarized by Tim Finholt (Summarized from a preface by Joachim Draheim, Karlsruhe, Spring 1985.)"
In: ''Tutti Celli'' (International Cello Society Newsletter). September/October 1996. It is believed that Schumann's widow
Clara Schumann Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...
, along with violinist
Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of t ...
, destroyed his Bach cello-arrangement manuscripts sometime after 1860, when Joachim declared them substandard. Writing in 2011, '' Fanfare'' reviewer James A. Altena agreed with that critique, calling the surviving Bach-Schumann cello/piano arrangement "a musical duckbilled platypus, an extreme oddity of sustained interest only to 19th-century musicologists". Joachim Raff, in 1868 while working on his own suites for solo piano and for other ensembles, made arrangements of the suites for piano solo, published from 1869 to 1871 by Rieter-Biedermann. In 1923,
Leopold Godowsky Leopold Mordkhelovich Godowsky Sr. (13 February 1870 – 21 November 1938) was a Lithuanian-born American virtuoso pianist, composer and teacher. He was one of the most highly regarded performers of his time, known for his theories concernin ...
composed piano transcriptions of Suites Nos. 2, 3, and 5, in full counterpoint for solo piano, subtitling them "very freely transcribed and adapted for piano". The cello suites have been transcribed for numerous solo instruments, including the violin, viola, double bass, viola da gamba, mandolin, piano, marimba, classical guitar, recorder, flute, electric bass,
horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...
, saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, tuba, ukulele, and charango. They have been transcribed and arranged for orchestra as well.


Structure

The suites are in six movements each, and have the following structure and order of movements. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Galanterie The term is sometimes used for movements in the Baroque dance suite whose inclusion is variable, unlike the fixed core of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue. These pieces usually follow the sarabande. In early 18th-century Germany, re ...
s: two
minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...
s in each of Suite Nos. 1 and 2; two
bourrée The bourrée ( oc, borrèia; also in England, borry or bore) is a dance of French origin and the words and music that accompany it. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it i ...
s in each of Suite Nos. 3 and 4; two
gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...
s in each of Suite Nos. 5 and 6 #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...
Scholars believe that Bach intended the works to be considered as a systematically conceived cycle, rather than an arbitrary series of pieces. Compared to Bach's other suite collections, the cello suites are the most consistent in order of their movements. In addition, to achieve a symmetrical design and go beyond the traditional layout, Bach inserted ''intermezzo'' or ''galanterie'' movements in the form of pairs between the sarabande and the gigue. Only five movements in the entire set of suites are completely non-chordal, meaning that they consist only of a single melodic line. These are the second minuet of Suite No. 1, the second minuet of Suite No. 2, the second bourrée of Suite No. 3, the gigue of Suite No. 4, and the sarabande of Suite No. 5. The second gavotte of Suite No. 5 has but one unison chord (the same note played on two strings at the same time), but only in the original
scordatura Scordatura (; literally, Italian for "discord", or "mistuning") is a tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain p ...
version of the suite; in the standard tuning version it is completely free of chords.


Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007

The prelude, mainly consisting of
arpeggiated A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
chords, is the best known movement from the entire set of suites and is regularly heard on television and in films. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008

The Prelude consists of two parts, the first of which has a strong recurring theme that is immediately introduced in the beginning. The second part is a scale-based cadenza movement that leads to the final, powerful chords. The subsequent allemande contains short cadenzas that stray away from this otherwise very strict dance form. The first minuet contains demanding chord shiftings and string crossings. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Minuet A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''. The term also describes the musical form that accomp ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009

The Prelude of this suite consists of an A–B–A–C form, with A being a scale-based movement that eventually dissolves into an energetic arpeggio part; and B, a section of demanding chords. It then returns to the scale theme, and ends with a powerful and surprising chord movement. The allemande is the only movement in the suites that has an up-beat consisting of three semiquavers instead of just one, which is the standard form. The second bourrée, though in C minor, has a two-flat (or G minor)
key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef a ...
. This notation, common in pre- Classical music, is sometimes known as a partial key signature. The first and second bourrée of the 3rd Suite are sometimes used as solo material for other bass instruments such as the tuba, euphonium, trombone and bassoon. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Bourrée The bourrée ( oc, borrèia; also in England, borry or bore) is a dance of French origin and the words and music that accompany it. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it i ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Suite No. 4 in E major, BWV 1010

Suite No. 4 is one of the most technically demanding of the suites, as E is an uncomfortable key on the cello and requires many extended left hand positions. The key is also difficult on cello due to the lack of resonant open strings. The prelude primarily consists of a difficult flowing quaver movement that leaves room for a cadenza before returning to its original theme. The very peaceful sarabande is quite obscure about the stressed second beat, which is the basic characteristic of the dance, since, in this particular sarabande, almost every first beat contains a chord, whereas the second beat most often does not. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Bourrée The bourrée ( oc, borrèia; also in England, borry or bore) is a dance of French origin and the words and music that accompany it. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it i ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011

Suite No. 5 was originally written in scordatura with the A-string tuned down to G, but nowadays a version for standard tuning is included in almost every printed edition of the suites along with the original version. Some chords must be simplified when playing with standard tuning, but some melodic lines become easier as well. The Prelude is written in an A–B form, and is a
French overture The French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. Its basic formal division is into two parts, which are usually enclosed by double bars and repeat signs. They are complementary in style (slow in dotted rhythms and fast in ...
. It begins with a slow, emotional movement that explores the deep range of the cello. After that comes a fast and very demanding single-line fugue that leads to the powerful end. This suite is most famous for its intimate sarabande, which is one of the few movements in the six suites that doesn't contain any double stops (chords). Mstislav Rostropovich described it as the essence of Bach's genius.
Paul Tortelier Paul Tortelier (21 March 1914 – 18 December 1990) was a French cellist and composer. After an outstanding student career at the Conservatoire de Paris he played in orchestras in France and the US before the Second World War. After the war he b ...
viewed it as an extension of silence. Rostropovich, extending Tortelier's "silence" to an extreme, would sometimes play the Sarabande as a recital encore at a metronome marking of 32 or slower, one note per beat, with no vibrato and no slurs, each note standing alone in a "well of silence".
Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma ('' Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...
played this movement on September 11, 2002 at the site of the
World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
, while the names of the dead were read on the first anniversary of remembrance of the attack. The 5th Suite is also exceptional as its courante and gigue are in the French style, rather than in the Italian form of the other five suites. An autograph manuscript of Bach's lute version of this suite exists as BWV 995.BWV995
at ''JSBach.org''. Retrieved November 23, 2015. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012

It is widely believed that Suite No. 6 was composed specifically for a five-stringed
violoncello piccolo The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...
, a smaller cello, roughly normal cello size with a fifth upper string tuned to E, a perfect fifth above the otherwise top string. However, some say there is no substantial evidence to support this claim: whilst three of the sources inform the player that it is written for an instrument ''à cinq cordes'', only Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript indicates the tunings of the strings, and the other sources do not mention any intended instrument at all. Other possible instruments for the suite include a cello da spalla, a version of the violoncello piccolo played on the shoulder like a
viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...
, as well as a viola with a fifth string tuned to E, called a
viola pomposa __NOTOC__ The viola pomposa (also known as the violino pomposo) is a five-stringed instrument developed around 1725. There are no exact dimensions applicable to all instruments used under this name, although in general the pomposa is slightly wid ...
. As the range required in this piece is very large, the suite was probably intended for a larger instrument, although it is conceivable that Bach—who was fond of the viola—may have performed the work himself on an arm-held violoncello piccolo. However, it is equally likely that beyond hinting the number of strings, Bach did not intend any specific instrument at all as the construction of instruments in the early 18th century was highly variable. Cellists playing this suite on a modern four-string cello encounter difficulties as they are forced to use very high positions to reach many of the notes. Performers specialising in early music and using authentic instruments generally use the five-string cello for this suite. The approach of Watson Forbes, in his transcription of this suite for viola, was to transpose the entire suite to G major, avoiding "a tone colour which is not very suitable for this type of music" and making most of the original chords playable on a four-stringed instrument. This suite is written in much more free form than the others, containing more cadenza-like movements and virtuosic passages. It is also the only one of the suites that is partly notated in the alto and soprano clefs (modern editions use tenor and treble clefs), which are not needed for the others since they never go above the note G4 (G above middle C). Mstislav Rostropovich called Suite No. 6 "a symphony for solo cello" and characterised its
D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...
tonality as evoking joy and triumph. # Prelude #
Allemande An ''allemande'' (''allemanda'', ''almain(e)'', or ''alman(d)'', French: "German (dance)") is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach ...
#
Courante The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...
# Sarabande #
Gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...
I / II #
Gigue The gigue (; ) or giga () is a lively baroque dance originating from the English jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th centuryBellingham, Jane"gigue."''The Oxford Companion to Music''. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. 6 July 20 ...


Speculations about Anna Magdalena Bach

Professor Martin Jarvis of
Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University (CDU) is an Australian public university with a main campus in Darwin and eight satellite campuses in some metropolitan and regional areas. It was established in 2003 after the merger of Northern Territory University ...
School of Music, in Darwin, Australia, speculated in 2006 that Anna Magdalena may have been the composer of several musical pieces attributed to her husband.Dutter, Barbie and Roya Nikkhah
"Bach works were written by his second wife, claims academic"
''
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
''. 23 April 2006. Jarvis proposes that Anna Magdalena wrote the six Cello Suites and was involved in composing the aria from the ''
Goldberg Variations The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also hav ...
'' (BWV 988). Georg Heinrich Ludwig Schwanberg has written on the title page, circa 1730 : "Pars 1. , Violino Solo , Composée , par , Sr. Jean Seb: Bach. , Pars 2. , Violoncello Solo. , Senza Basso. , composée , par , Sr. J. S. Bach. , Maitre de la Chapelle , et , Directeur de la Musique , a , Leipsic. , ecrite par Madame , Bachen. Son Epouse." Musicologists, critics, and performers, however, pointing to the thinness of evidence of this proposition, and the extant evidence that supports Johann Sebastian Bach's authorship, remain skeptical of the claim.Ross, Alex
"The Search for Mrs. Bach"
''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. October 31, 2010.


References


External links


Anna Magdalena's manuscript


*
Johann Sebastian Bach
a
Grove Music Online


nbsp;– Comprehensive analysis and notes on interpretation by cellist Georg Mertens
Audio, commentary, analysis, and history
from Stanford University
History, Baroque Cello, Editions, Recordings, Interpretation
jsbachcellosuites.com
Cello Suite No. 1Cello Suite No. 2Cello Suite No. 3Cello Suite No. 4Cello Suite No. 5
an
Cello Suite No. 6
performances by the
Netherlands Bach Society The Netherlands Bach Society ( nl, Nederlandse Bachvereniging) is the oldest ensemble for Baroque music in the Netherlands, and possibly in the world. The ensemble was founded in 1921 in Naarden to perform Bach's ''St Matthew Passion'' on Good Frid ...
(video and background information)
MIDI Sequences

Musical scores and MIDI files
at the Mutopia Project {{Authority control Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach Solo cello pieces 1710s works 1720s works