Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musici...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him
the greatest composer of all time.
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 first suite, in G major, gives the feel of innocent
simplicity, and serves as a marvelous opening to these
extraordinary works. The Prelude recalls the C major
Prelude which opens Book One of the Well-Tempered
Clavier. Each piece sets a remarkable atmosphere with
no melodies, only strong rhythmic patterns, cunningly
evolving harmonies, and evocative textures. Bach uses
short, arpeggiated phrases to build larger-scale
crescendos and decrescendos, and these phrases in turn
aggregate into still larger structures, evoking an
endlessly more complicated fractal pattern. This
quality would become a characteristic of Bach's cello
writing, along with a distinctive rhythmic quality far
removed from the character of the original dances.
Bach's suiite may have been inspired by viol writing in
France and cello writing in Italy, but there was
nothing like it before the first suite, and little like
it after, except for the five suites that followed.
PARTITION