It is thought that Bach wrote his six suites for
unaccompanied cello between 1717 and 1723, while he was
in the employ of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen and
had two superb solo cellists, Bernard Christian Linigke
and Christian Ferdinand Abel, at his disposal. However,
the earliest copy of the suites dates from 1726, and no
autographs survive. Thus a chronological order is
difficult to prove, though one guesses that these
suites were composed in numerical order from the way
that they gradually ...(+)
It is thought that Bach wrote his six suites for
unaccompanied cello between 1717 and 1723, while he was
in the employ of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen and
had two superb solo cellists, Bernard Christian Linigke
and Christian Ferdinand Abel, at his disposal. However,
the earliest copy of the suites dates from 1726, and no
autographs survive. Thus a chronological order is
difficult to prove, though one guesses that these
suites were composed in numerical order from the way
that they gradually evolve and deepen, both technically
and musically.
A Baroque suite is typically a collection of dance
movements, usually in binary form with each half
repeated. Common elements of the suite were the
Allemande (German dance), a moderately slow duple-meter
dance; the Courante, a faster dance in triple meter;
the Sarabande, a Spanish-derived dance in a slow triple
meter with emphasis on the second beat; and a Gigue
(Jig), which is rapid, jaunty, and energetic. Bach took
these typical dance forms and abstracted them, and then
added a free-form, almost improvisatory Prelude which
sets the tone for each suite, and a galanterie, an
additional dance interposed between Sarabande and
Gigue. (In the first two suites, Bach uses a pair of
Minuets.) With these dances, Bach experimented and
created the first, and arguably still the finest, solo
works for a relatively new instrument.
The six Bach suites for solo cello may be arranged
according to their modern, galant dance movements into
three pairs (Nos. 1 and 2 use Minuets, Nos. 3 and 4
Bourrées, and Nos. 5 and 6 Gavottes). They also form
two sequences of three in terms of key and mood
(major-minor-major), and the Suite in E flat major
opens the second group of three. This second group goes
beyond the first group of three in its contrapuntal
density and in its sense of untrammeled imagination. So
we encounter in the opening movement the use of a
repetitive arpeggio to build complex phrases, as in the
first suite. But here the sense of improvisatory
fantasy is stronger: the arpeggio descends in a gradual
figure and varies negligibly as it explores a range of
keys. Bach alternates this descending arpeggio pattern
with three wave-like cadenzas that rise and fall in a
faster rhythm and gradually begin to sound more and
more like the arpeggio figures, until both emerge in a
triumphant E flat major. The broken-up texture and the
structural ambition remind one of Bach's large,
quasi-improvisatory organ pieces.
Although this piece was originally written for cello, I
transcribed it for Viola.