The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are some of the most frequently performed and recognizable solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717-23, when he served as Kapellmeister in Kothen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites a Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for cello solo without bass). Due to the works’ technical demands, etude-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 revived and recorded by Pablo Casals 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.
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: I. Prélude (Remastered 2021)
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: II. Allemande (Remastered 2021)
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: III. Courante (Remastered 2021)
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: IV. Sarabande (Remastered 2021)
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: V. Gavotte I & II (Remastered 2021)
Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: VI. Gigue (Remastered 2021)
J.S. Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites
Luigi Boccherini was the only notable exception to the near-universal neglect of the cello as a solo instrument. Like other virtuosos, he wrote his own music, but very few others joined him. Joseph Haydn did write a couple concertos for a cellist in his orchestra, one of which was lost and not rediscovered until the 1950s. Virtually no unaccompanied works for cello were written in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The suites were discovered and finally published in 1825. But in spite of their publication, they were not widely known by anyone besides a few cellists who viewed them as exercises — if they viewed them at all. The development of the cello as a solo instrument continued without Bach’s influence for another century, during which, again, virtually no music for solo cello was written.
1889: The spark of discovery
A 13-year-old Catalan wunderkind cellist by the name of Pablo Casals went for a stroll with his father, and they stepped into a second-hand music shop. There, Casals stumbled upon an old copy of Bach’s Cello Suites. He took them home, began to play them, and fell in love.
1915: Kodaly gets the hint
For the first time in almost two centuries, a major composer decided to write a work for unaccompanied cello. Zoltan Kodaly incorporated what is perhaps Bach’s most radical technique in the cello suites — scordatura (an alternate tuning of the strings) — into a remarkably compelling sonata for solo cello. The same year, Max Reger wrote his own suites for unaccompanied cello, and the dam was broken.
The 20th century flood of cello music
Once Kodaly and Reger wrote their works, other composers jumped on the bandwagon. As a result, more music was written for unaccompanied cello in the 20th century than for any other solo instrument, save the piano.
1936: Casals records the suites
When Casals began recording the cello suites in 1936, the ground shifted under the endpins of all cellists. Suddenly there was an expectation that every cellist should know the suites, and indeed no true virtuoso of the cello could be legitimate without actually producing a recording of them. The number of recordings of the suites exploded, as did their popularity and influence.
What makes the suites so powerful?
It took more than 200 years for the world to get to know these miraculous suites. But once they become known, they became one of the most influential works ever written. A century later, composers are still writing works based on them. Cellists are still plumbing their depth. Why?
The Six-Movement Structure of Bach’s Cello Suites
All six of Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello follow the same six-movement structure.
1. Prelude: In this context, a prelude is an introduction to a longer piece of music. The elegant prelude in Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 frequently serves as the backdrop for movie trailers and commercials.
2. Allemande: An allemande is a slow movement composed in 4/4 time. The standard allemande rhythm begins a measure with a dotted quarter note followed by two sixteenth notes on the upbeat of beat two. This jaunty rhythmic pattern made the allemande a popular dance form in the Renaissance and early Baroque eras.
3. Courante: A courante is a relatively fast dance section in triple meter. It marks a notable contrast from an allemande when the two sections are played back-to-back. Like the allemande, the standard courante beat begins with a dotted quarter note on the downbeat. This is followed by an eighth note on the upbeat of beat two.
4. Sarabande: A sarabande is a dance section in triple meter. Unlike the courante, which has French and Italian roots, the sarabande comes from Spain. Some of the most iconic movements of Bach’s cello suites come in sarabande sections, such as in the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor.
5. Galanteries: The galanteries (dances) of Bach’s cello suites vary. In Cello Suite No. 1 and Cello Suite No. 2, the fifth movement contains two minuets. In Cello Suite No. 3 and Cello Suite No. 4, the fifth movement contains two bourrées. In Cello Suite No. 5 and Cello Suite No. 6, the fifth movement contains two gavottes.
6. Gigue: A gigue is a lively dance in 3/8 time. It is considered a festive ending to a musical suite. The French word “gigue” is equivalent to the English word “jig.”
Pablo Casals
December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973
Pablo (or Pau) Casals was born in December 1876 in El Vendrell, Catalonia, where his father was the local organist and choirmaster. Carlos taught his son to sing, to play the piano and organ and to compose. At six the boy heard an itinerant Catalan musician play a home-made cello. He asked his father to build him one and would always treasure that first ‘cello, which had a gourd for a sound box. At the age of 11 he heard a real cello and knew that it was his destiny to play such an instrument. His father bought him one and gave him lessons. Subsequently, he entered the Municipal School of Music in Barcelona, where he rejected the old-fashioned stiff-arm way of playing. While moonlighting in a café trio, he was heard by Albéniz, who helped him to move to Madrid to study at the conservatoire. He made his Madrid orchestral debut in the Lalo Concerto, which in 1899 he also played at the Crystal Palace in London and at the Lamoureux Concerts in Paris. He toured America in 1901 and in 1905 went to live in Paris where, with Alfred Cortot and Jacques Thibaud, he established a trio that would last until 1934.
For more than three decades Casals toured the world as a leading cello soloist. He was single-handedly responsible for bringing Bach’s solo suites out of obscurity, and he performed a wide, if conservative, repertoire. When he returned to Barcelona from Paris in 1919, he recognised the need for a local symphony orchestra. In setting up the Orquesta Pau Casals, he risked his own hard-earned fees by subsidising it for the first decade of its existence. The orchestra made its debut in October 1920 and, despite his lack of conducting experience, Casals made a success of the enterprise. In 1931 he directed the orchestra in a Barcelona performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to mark the birth of the Spanish Republic. But the civil war and the triumph of the Fascists tore his life and his career asunder. A man of principle, who would not appear in Hitler’s Germany, Casals was implacably opposed to Franco’s regime and in 1936, threatened with death if he returned to Spain, exiled himself to southern France. After the Second World War, alarmed at Britain and America’s acquiescence in Franco’s regime, he abruptly ceased playing in public. But from 1950, American admirers organised a festival around him in Prades, his adopted home in the French Pyrenees and Casals flourished again as chamber musician, teacher, conductor and musical philosopher. In 1956 he emigrated to his mother’s native Puerto Rico, from where he emerged to perform in 1958 at the United Nations and in 1961 at the White House. He died in Puerto Rico in October 1973, aged 96.