For Violists, a Recent Transcription of Bach's Iconic Solo Cello Suites Is a Challenging Affair
There's always room for cello, even on a violist's music stand
On my music stand is an exciting collection of things, but the most challenging are the Suites for Solo Cello transcribed for viola. I am going to be recording all six for the Canadian record label Analekta in Montreal in late September and so I have started work early on having them prepared for back-to-back recording sessions. I have elected to give about 30 concerts of the suites over nine months, in part because I hadn’t learned them all as a student and didn’t even know a couple of them. Also, more importantly, I wanted to see how the audience reacted and what worked and what didn’t.
That is a lifelong process, of course, and probably why artists often record them later on in their careers, as Rostropovich did. I am sure that in 20 years, I shall have a totally different feeling for them and they will mean something quite different, but for now I have a job at hand, and an inspiring one at that.
I’ve been researching heavily, using a fantastic collection of copies of the manuscripts published by Bärenreiter, all six suites by all four known copyists: Anna Magdalena Bach (probably the most reliable), Johann Peter Kellner, and two unknown sources, but also interesting and useful. I’m also spending time with the original autograph copies of the violin sonatas and partitas and reading wonderful books about the subject, such as Bach’s Cellos Suites, Analyses and Explorations, Vols. 1 and 2, by Allen Winold (Indiana University Press, 2007).
Further Resources
Composition Bach’s Solo Suites for Cello (transcribed for viola)
Edition Peters Edition (Simon Rowland-Jones, editor)
Considered by Helen Callus, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, concerto soloist, associate professor of viola at the University of California–Santa Barbara, and a past president of the American Viola Society.
The most interesting recordings that I’ve heard have been the 2001 recording by Barbara Westphal and an older one by Anner Bylsma. Both are quite different from one another, but so interesting and educational. Each approaches the works from such an intelligent and educated perspective.
The edition I am using is the Simon Rowland-Jones version printed by Peters Editions. I feel this is by far the best version to date—it’s clean, clear, and has some useful notes in the front (for the diehards there is also a two-disc set that Rowland-Jones recorded as an accompaniment to his edition). There are a ton of other versions, heavily edited, and some quite entertaining, with fingering suggestions that leap out from another era! But I felt I had to search out everything there is so that I can bring something new to these works, finding out at the same time how the suites speak to me and what I want to say with them as a performer.
I have spent a lot of practice time working on an even more accurate left-hand frame; this means that I can tackle some of the large spanning double-stops easily and melodically, but also that I never lose the color of the key in the scalic or arpeggiated sequences. Everything is as exact as I can play it—the choices of intonation are just that, choices, and not just where the fingers fall. I want to hear all the harmonies alongside the melody—that’s as important as anything else in Bach, so it’s important that I do this work to make it precise.
The other thing I’ve discovered is that the suites are not as crystalline as I had thought. There are several ways to make a phrase work (and several ways to bow them), even in something that seemingly has so many rules. But the interpretation has been an interesting challenge: how far to go?
To really make every movement work means that you have to understand every nuance, every color possibility, and keep the form clearly in your head. It is quite a juggling act at times and to do well and requires tremendous focus.
But in the end, I know I will have grown as a player and hopefully brought something new to the catalogue of other great performances of these works.
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