Skip to content
Siete qui: Home Festival Festival 2012 An artistic peak into the literature for cello
An artistic peak into the literature for cello PDF Print E-mail
Bach’s Six Suites for unaccompanied cello have begun to be regularly performed in public thanks to Pablo Casals. In fact, in the end of the Nineteenth century, the celebrated Catalan cellist began including them among his concert programmes, giving them great popularity. Bach wrote these six masterpieces during his permanence in Köthen (from 1720 to 1724), one of his most intensely creative periods, during which he composed some of his most important masterpieces (the Brandenburg Concertos, the English and French Suites, the first part of the Well-Tempered Clavier).
The Six Suites for unaccompanied cello reveal Bach’s profound knowledge of the nature of instruments and his familiarity with their potentialities and features. In contrast with musicians of the Romantic period, he was indifferent to matters of sound “effects” and sonority.
These masterpieces are extremely refined works of art, thanks to the composer’s inventive vigour and skilful constructive technique. They were probably born with didactical purposes: the pieces are in fact ordered by implementing technical difficulty.
When Bach composed his Suites, this form had already been stylized, after a long path of development. The Suites for unaccompanied cello, following the presumed Corellian model, attribute a meditative role to the central movement (Sarabande), before a rapid conclusion in ternary rhythm (Gigue). Comparing them to all preceding examples, the first important difference can be seen in the important and original development of the vast and virtuosistical Prelude. This opening dance, lofty and noble, is not similar to the other movements, witty and melodically seducing.
Following the traditional and rigid Baroque structure, the Prelude introduces an invariable sequence of dances: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande (the climax of the whole composition) and Gigue.
Bach’s addition of a dance between the Sarabande and the Gigue is new and original. In the first two Suites the composer sets a couple of Minuets, in the Third and in the Fourth, we find two Bourées and in the last two Suites, there are two Gavottes, more recent dances coming from the “gallant” repertoire.
A part from their common traits, every Suite has its own personality. There are various and important differences among them, due in particular to technical difficulty, that distinguishes the last three compositions from the others. In fact, to give an example, surely the Fifth and Sixth Suites represent an overwhelming challenge for every cello player.

Monica Rosolen

​