About the Music

Cello music and even the cello itself from this era is a bit elusive. Part of the issue is that much information has been lost in 300+ years. In the case of Six Cello Suites, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), there is no extant original manuscript in Bach’s hand. There are multiple editions by others, including Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, but all of the editions are at least a little suspect in details so one never knows exactly what Bach intended. 

Moreover, composers from this period, including Bach, were not in the habit of providing much detail in their manuscripts. Unlike manuscripts from later eras, there are no tempo or dynamic markings. Many are based on dance forms but it is likely they were not really intended for dance per se. Others are in well known baroque forms such as Chaconne or Toccata, but beyond that, composers did not leave much direction for performers.

The cello - or more completely, “violoncello” - the 2nd largest member of the violin family, has evolved over time and baroque composers had a very different instrument in mind as they were writing. The cello was not thought of as a solo instrument but rather expected mostly to provide a supportive role. In the 1700’s composers began to see the cello in a different light and I’m sharing several examples to highlight the evolution of cello thinking.

In 1717 Bach became employed as Director of Music by the young Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, in what is now Germany. Prince Leopold was a patron of arts and a musician himself, playing the harpsichord and viola da gamba.  He was able to attract many other fine musicians, establishing an extensive library and providing excellent instruments on which they could perform. During his 6 years in Cöthen Bach produced an astonishing amount of instrumental music, including the Brandenburg Concerti, the orchestral suites, the violin concerti, the Well Tempered Clavier, and the works for unaccompanied violin and cello.  Although it is not certain, Bach probably wrote the Cello Suites for either Christian Ferdinand Abel or Christian Bernhard Linigke, both of whom were master cellists in the Cöthen court orchestra. 

The violin family of instruments including the cello was brought into the early versions of the modern form by Cremonese maker Andrea Amati around 1560. For the first century or so the cello was thought of mainly as providing the bass line in performance. Any solo type passages were preferentially given to the viola da gamba, which is from a different lineage than the cello. When Bach set out to write his Cello Suites there were few others attempting similar compositions. As was often the case, Bach blazed a trail and set new standards for others who followed him.

The six Cello Suites were composed around 1720, following the format of the Baroque suite, a collection of dances all in the same key. The suite is multicultural in structure with the Allemande from Germany, Courante from France (or the Italian counterpart, Corrente), the slow and stately Sarabande from Spain and the lively English Jig or in French, Gigue. Additional dances were the courtly Minuet (or Menuet in French) in Suites 1 & 2, interchanged with Bourrées in Suites 3 & 4, and Gavottes in Suites 5 & 6. Each suite begins with a Prelude, not a dance but rather a more free form opening statement establishing the key and certain musical ideas, often with an improvisatory and virtuosic quality.

I begin this set with Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 which is a quintessential example of the Suites. Each Suite has its own character, and one might describe No. 3 as bright and exuberant. The key of C major exploits the open strings and with them Bach has created a warm, spacious and extroverted work. As with the other Suites, Bach is able to get around the physical fact that the cello most easily and predominately provides a melodic line but through a compositional sleight of hand successfully creates a polyphonic structure. This is achieved sometimes with chords or implied harmony from arpeggiated notes which can give the illusion of simultaneous voices.

Next, I’ll share some works by contemporaries of J. S. Bach, some predating the Cello Suites, others following slightly later.

Italian composer Giuseppe Colombi (1635-1694) was named Maestro di Cappella for the court in Modena in 1674 and replaced Giovanni Maria Bononcini as maestro of the Cathedral of Modena in 1678. It is thought that the pitch standard in Modena in this era was a=404 Hz (unlike 440 Hz today) which made cello tuning more like B flat/F/c/g unlike the modern C/G/D/A, lending a different and richer sonority.  Later Baroque the pitch standard was thought to be closer to a=415 Hz. Chiacona a Basso solo is one of the earliest known pieces written for cello. It is notable that the Chiacona at the time was a fast dance, not a dirge. Characteristically, the emphasis is on the 2nd beat.

Modena attracted other fine musicians including Domenico Gabrieli (1651-1690) one of the earliest known virtuoso cellists. Born in Bologna, he worked both as a performing cellist as well as the president of the Accademia Filamonica of Bologna. In the 1780’s he was a musician at the court of Duke Franceso II d’Este of Modena. Gabrieli wrote several operas as well as instrumental and vocal church works. Notably, he is known as the composer of some of the earliest attested works for solo cello, including the now seminal seven Ricercari which were influential in the later development of the unaccompanied repertoire for the cello.  In this set, I’m sharing Ricercar #5. The term ricercar means to “search out,” and many ricercari served a preludial function “searching out” the key of the following movements. Ricercar is also a term sometimes used to designate an etude exploring a technical device in an instrumental or vocal composition. 

A generation after Colombi and Gabrieli came Francesco Paolo Scipriani (1678-1753) (also known as Supriani, Supriano, or Sopriano), an Italian cellist and composer around Naples. He wrote one of the first instruction manuals for the cello Principj da imparare a suonare il Violoncello, along with twleve unaccompanied Toccate. As such the Toccate demonstrated the union of pedagogy and creativity in cello composition. Scipriani used the fifth position as well as the bass and tenor clefs in his writing. In this set I’m sharing Toccate Prima in G major. The Toccata in the Baroque era was a composition in free form typically with fast moving, lightly fingered passaged requiring a great deal of virtuosity. Sometimes the term Toccata was applied to fanfare-like pieces.

Joseph-Marie-Clement Dall’Abaco (1710-1805) was born in Brussels which was the capital of the Spanish Netherlands at that time. His Italian born father Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco was a celebrated composer and cellist before him. Joseph studied with his father initially, but his studies later continued in Venice. Joseph Dall’Abaco was considered one of the greatest cellists of his time. Although his extant compositions are relatively few - about 40 sonatas and 11 Capricci - it seems he held himself to very high standards possibly because he was performing before patrons and colleagues of advanced musical taste. The original manuscript of the Capricci has been lost and they exist only in questionable copies from the 19th century. The date of composition is uncertain, but they may have been written as a tribute to honor his father after his passing. American baroque cellist Elinor Frey noted that she is “continually captivated by Dall’Abaco’s ability, like Bach’s, to generate rhythmic interest through changes of register, the intriguing perception of multiple voices, and a great and often noble, intimate, and tragic elegance.”  In this set I am sharing Capricci Nos. 2, 5, 8 and 9.

I end this set with two pieces not originally written for cello.

J. S. Bach composed the Partita in A minor pour la Flûte Traversière, BWV 1013 in 1723 during his productive 6 years at Cöthen as noted above. During this era the baroque flute was becoming one of the most popular instruments among both amateurs and virtuosos. Bach’s Partita and six sonatas for flute certainly were intended for the latter. Bach did not play the flute himself and there were no similar works prior to this so Bach was left to his own prodigious inventiveness in blazing this trail. Unlike the Cello Suites, the Partita has only 4 movements, but they are in the typical dance format, beginning with an Allemande (skipping a Prelude), then Corrente (Italian for Courante), Sarabande, and finally Bourrée Angloise, a popular dance in Europe at that time. Today the Partita remains a technically challenging piece for the flute and it is even more so on the cello. I feel a certain license to present the Partita on the cello since Bach was well known to rework his own compositions for other instrumentation. His great Mass in B Minor is a compilation of some of his earlier compositions, and the opening sinfonia of Cantata No. 29 is an expansion of the Prelude from his Partita No.3 in E Major, BWV 1006 for violin solo. Similarly, the St. Mark Passion, the Christmas Oratorio and the Well Tempered Clavier Book II appear to have borrowed heavily from previously existing material. Finally, closer to home, the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 also exists as the Suite for Lute in G Minor, BWV 995.  For those interested, the Lute version fleshes out more completely the implied harmony of the Cello version.

German composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was born into a family heavily connected to the Lutheran Church - his father was as clergyman, his mother was the daughter of a clergyman, and his older brother also took orders - but he showed an astonishing aptitude for music at an early age, mastering the violin, flute, zither and keyboard by the age of ten and composed an opera at age twelve. His parents would have preferred that he entered the clergy and they actively discouraged their son from becoming a musician. As a compromise, and at his mother’s insistence, he started studying law at Leipzig University but the gravitational draw to music proved irresistible. As a composer Telemann was prolific, writing an enormous body of sacred and secular works, including 1043 church cantatas and settings of the Passion for each year while he was in Hamburg, 46 in all. The form with which Telemann is often associated was the orchestral suite which he perfected from the French. He is believed to have composed well over 600 orchestral suites but only about a quarter of these survive. Telemann enjoyed tremendous popularity as the most famous musician in Germany during his lifetime, possibly because of his sense of humor and likeable personality. His salaried income at Hamburg was about three times what J. S. Bach earned at Leipzig, and Telemann made a substantial profit on his many works sold to music enthusiasts. Bach and Telemann were friends - Bach named Telemann godfather to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel.

Telemann published his Twelve Fantasias for Violin without Bass in 1735 synthesizing a wide variety of styles with a perfect knowledge of musical genres. Remarkably, in a departure from tradition at the time, the Fantasias were written for solo violin, without the typical continuo part. Perhaps Telemann was attracted to the solo form as he was familiar with Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello as well as the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. As an accomplished violinist Telemann understood writing for this instrument well. I conclude this set with a transcription of Fantasia No. 7 which I think works well on the cello. Although in the modern era Telemann has receded in our consciousness and is, I believe, underappreciated, one marvels at the sheer inventiveness as well as deep pathos in his writing.