Thursday, March 11, 2010

Bach's Cello Suites

Jay Lichtmann's most excelent site with a wealth of sheet music for trumpet, trombone, and brass ensembles, including trumpet transcriptions of Bach's first three Unaccompanied Cello Suites @. There's also a full transcription for trombone with a very thorough commentary article at Doug Yeo's site.
I am not nearly advanced enough to play the Cello Suite transcriptions, so instead I am listening to as many versions as I can. So far the interpretation I like the most are Edgar Meyer's double bass transcriptions. He treats the dances as dances, with a steady pulse underneath. Most of the trad cellists play them rubato, one phrase at a time, which makes it difficult for me to follow. Pablo Casals, the presumably greatest-of-them-all godfather of Bach's Cello Suites, really goes overboard with this approach, so it sounds more like a free jazz solo than anything else - try dancing a menuet or allemande to Casals and you'll break your legs.
I also got a pile of other cello versions as well as a transcription for guitar and another one for flute (only the first three, though). Alison Balsom does Sarabande and Gigue from the second suite on her Bach For Trumpet album, and they are OK - she arpeggiates the chords, which must be crazy difficult to play and doesn't sound so good, IMHO.
Now I want to hear the suites on marimba!

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