Bach Cello Suites (2024) | Hacker News Reader

Bach Cello Suites (2024)

bachcellosuites.co.uk

228 pointsbondarchuk85 comments

I love this so much, as someone who tends to listen to a single piece of music on repeat (especially while coding) and has spent a lot of time with Yo-Yo Ma's "Six Evolutions".

Loved learning about the deep diversity of recordings from other artists, the ambiguous history of the music, and that there's a question if the music was even originally written for a cello!

Also loved that the site recommends different recordings based on the mood of interpretation.

This all reminds me of the HN favorite, "Reality has a lot of detail." Feel like I just discovered fractal complexity in a piece of music I naively thought I knew well.

Different renderings of classical pieces can be night-and-day difference. There are some pieces that have been worn grey from over exposure and then you hear that one special version and it's like it is a completely new piece all over again.

Now just imagine you lived during the romantic period of music where the virtuoso's highly personal interpretation of the piece was not only encouraged - it was downright expected.

Even today where the printed note is considered sacrosanct - you'll still find that artists are able to inject quite a bit of their own personality into a piece.

Great example is the Well-Tempered Clavier as performed by Glenn Gould versus Sviatoslav Richter.

Despite all that I still find myself so drawn to interpretations by Rubinstein and Perahia that prize themselves on their restraint.

Although Argerich is my goddess so who knows

Dvorak's cello concerto in b minor, Rostropovich vs Yo-Yo Ma

(I'm strongly in the Rostropovich camp, myself)

Some Rostropovich, second movement of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, as at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyAMvctMEbI

Jacqueline du Pré played this with fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yxtaeFuEQ

Vivaldi's Four Seasons is like that for me; it has to be completely re-imagined, like Max Richter's "Recomposed", to pique my interest.

Try this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8zbPcuIvSM

The Ivry Gitlis interpretation of the chaconne is wild

https://xkcd.com/915/

XKCD is just a high brow version of the reaction gif. But it carries just as much value.

Nope. Really does not apply here.

As someone who grew up bathed in baroque orchestral and medieval choral music, I can imagine that to the outside this applies.

after all a genre that you're not familiar with tends to sound the same.

…which of course is a good reminder not to make assumptions about domains in which one has limited or no knowledge. I too have spent my entire life in classical music - I’m a collaborative pianist. But I have to guard against making judgements about popular genres which I don’t regularly listen to.

My year in review music roundups from Spotify or Apple Music have always been totally useless because I code to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians almost daily. Something about that composition just gets me in the zone and I've been using it to study or work to since I first heard it in college 20+ years ago.

I’m listening to this now for the first time now. Somehow I had never heard of him. Thank you. I sense this music will be with me for a long time.

Oh great, I'm glad! I vividly remember the first time a friend that was studying 18 Musicians for a class at Berklee came over to my apartment with the original ECM vinyl and we just sat there silently listening for the hour. I don't think I'll ever grow tired of listening to it.

Erik Satie does that for me

I should try coding to Vexations sometime, it could last me the whole work day!

"Reality has a surprising amount of detail" (2017): 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43087779

8 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16184255

6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22020495

2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38407851

The Netherlands Bach Society [1] has an ongoing project of recording all of Bach's works and making them available for free.

They also have a YouTube channel [2]

[1] https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach

[2] https://m.youtube.com/bach

I was going to share this but you beat me to it. I stumbled across this a few weeks ago. What an amazing resource.

The Bach Cello Suites are deservedly famous, but if you are looking to branch out to other solo cello music I recommend listening to Zoltan Kodály's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello. After the Bach Cello Suites it is probably the most important piece in the solo cello repertoire. One of the unusual features of the piece is that it calls for the bottom two strings to be tuned down half a step which gives the cello a darker timbre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phygv_Et9sQ

When tuning down those two strings, would the player need to "relearn" the positions of fingers on the strings when playing? Or would they play at the same positions and ignore the conflict in expected and actual sound?

The linkage between hand position and visual location on the staff is so hard to relearn for someone that only plays one instrument that the music is written so that notes to be played on the B string (the C tuned down) and the F# string (the G tuned down) are written with incorrect pitches.

That is, an actual D# played on the actual B string is written as an E on the staff.

It's weird to learn the Kodaly this way, but the piece is hard enough that, at least in my case, I basically have to memorize it to have a fighting chance. I still haven't performed it for a real concert after 20 years of thinking about doing so.

This also creates some ambiguities, since you can play many notes on either the F# string or the D string. But context is enough to tell what Kodaly meant.

Relatedly, the fifth Bach suite is also written for an alternate tuning ("scordatura"), with the same "wrong note" approach to notation (at least in modern editions). The A string is tuned down to a G, giving you beautifully transformed resonances for the key of C minor.

> This also creates some ambiguities, since you can play many notes on either the F# string or the D string. But context is enough to tell what Kodaly meant.

I found that sticking to the edited score's III/IV markings gets you in the right zone–there's enough other things to figure out haha.

The music is notated as if there had been no detuning so that you can use the natural finger positions. (For example, a note that is notated as a C would actually sound as a B.) The trade-off is that it makes some of the intervals look wrong, but you do get used to it.

Bach's 5th cello suite also uses this technique where the A string is tuned down to a G. (The technical term is "scordatura.")

Interesting! On the guitar when alternate tunings are used, the pitches are written as they sound.

I wonder if maybe the difference is due to the fact that alternate fingerings are very common for guitar (because of having more strings spaced closer together). So notating pitches assuming a specific fingering doesn't make sense.

Plus I don't think the mapping from the staff to muscle memory for guitar is nearly as strong because we have frets.

jinx

Hey, Joe! This is one of my favorite cello pieces -- so hauntingly beautiful. I've probably listened to Janos Starker's performance dozens of times, but I also liked Inbal Segev's version. Parts of it seemed brighter somehow.

My mom is performing the Kodaly next weekend–weird timing to see this on HN!

Oh hey Balateros!

Thank you for sharing this; I'm really enjoying it a lot.

Beautiful pieces.

My understanding is that for centuries after Bach's death, they were disregarded. They were seen almost as etudes, for cellists to use for practice to hone their technique. They didn't really gain their current status as respectable concert pieces until Pablo Casals dug them up in the early 20th century and produced his classic recordings.

> My understanding is that for centuries after Bach's death, they were disregarded.

Not exactly.

Bach died in 1750. At this time the "market" for music was going through big changes. In Bach's time the main customers for music were courts of barons and kings and municipalities. That's the career he had, a musikmeister.

But look deeper and you'll see an economic landscape changing: the rise of cities, merchants, financial capitalism, etc. A bourgeoisie was rising and consuming music in concert rooms, opera houses and for private playing. But this bourgeoisie had different tastes. They didn't have a deep musical instruction so they preferred more "pop" music: easy to listen, easy to play, easy to follow. Bach's music is the opposite of it. It was out of fashion.

Bach's sons followed this simplified style. Most of all, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach was big into it. He got so good at this that he became an instructor and mentor to both Mozart and Haydn.

But Carl never stopped adoring his father music and used Johan Sebastian Bach (his dad) material for teaching. So J.S. Bach was widely known and venerated among musicians, including Beethoven.

However, the public recognition of Bach's worth only began when Mendelssohn made public presentations of his masses, in 1829. But this was 37 years before Pablo Casals was born.

Yeah, that mostly tracks with my understanding. But can both of our stories be true?

The initial obscurity of the cello suites was part of the larger disregarding of Bach's work, in the shift from baroque to classical style. But did the "re-"regarding of the cello suites happen at the same time as Mendelssohn? Or did Mendelssohn only start the process, by rediscovering a few good pieces, while other pieces like the cello suites waited another ~hundred years?

The composers went in and out of fashion after their deaths.

My understanding is that both Mozart and Schubert started to fall out of fashion in the early to mid 1900s for being "lightweight" and just stepping stones to Beethoven. It took some dedicated musicologists from Britain who championed them in the 50s to really solidify their standing in music history.

I also believe we are now seeing a resurgence of interest in Salieri in part thanks to the movie...

Both are true.

The cello wasn't a popular solo instrument. Pablo Casals was a celebrity who made the instrument a much bigger deal. The cello suites rode on his celebrity.

Both Mozart and Chopin were known to hand copy out the preludes and fugues and always keep a copy of them on hand

> they were disregarded.

As were the Partitas and Sonatas for unaccompanied violin. It wasn’t until the great 19th century violinist Joachim began playing them in recitals that they came to light again. Even then it was not widely accepted. I believe it may have been George Bernard Shaw who had pretty harsh words to say about the very idea of treating these works seriously. My daughter is preparing for her conservatory auditions; and these works are now compulsory literally everywhere!

Yes! The Gavotte en Rondeau from the 3rd Partita is probably my favorite Bach piece, beating out even the cello suites. Here's a lovely performance by Kavakos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNy9fH7VaV4

He was just in Toronto earlier in the year and played the entire Sonatas and Partitas in back to back concerts on sequential days. Spectacular.

Interestingly, his encores were just to replay a movement of Bach. I mean, after that, what else?

Hilary Hahn did the same thing a few years ago. In one case, played a movement from a sonata that wasn't in the program, and in another replayed a movement from earlier. Both very interesting, and fantastic performances!

I play viola, and usually it's only the cello suites that are played on viola. But I fell in love with the sonatas and partitas. They're just incredible. The only one that I ever learned fully and performed was the second partita. Of course, on viola you have to play them down a 5th but they still work beautifully and sound great.

> I play viola

Username checks out.

FYI, We just had world-class cellist Steuart Pincombe here in Austin last month performing the last three Bach cello concertos along with three matched brews from the excellent local Lazarus brewery as part of his occcasional "Bach and Beer" performances.

He's a flat amazing cellist, and watching him perform that last concerto you really realize how hard he's working to get it done - it's a workout. Anyway, it was a really good evening. (FWIW, this was part of the Arts On Alexander program this year, which is one of Austin's lesser known gems of amazing live classical music performaces.

IMO Rostropovich and Jian Wang[1] have the best recordings, two sides of the same coin. I never understand the hype of Yo-Yo Ma. And if you like Jian Wang, you would probably also like Viktoria Mullova's interpretation of Sonatas and Partitas

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCSqHFgSUhU&list=PL8Hi9pw3gE...

I'm also very fond of Jian Wang's recording! Thanks for the recommendations, I've found some of Viktoria Mullova's Vivaldi renditions[1] refreshing. [1] https://viktoriamullova.com/albums/vivaldi-violin-concertos/

I can highly recommend the William Skeen recordings of the Cello Suites, recorded and released by one of the best classical labels: Reference Recordings. You get the historically informed sound and the absolute best sound quality in one package.

https://referencerecordings.com/recording/the-six-cello-suit...

Oh, it's...very new! Thanks for the recommendation.

Another recommendation: the recordings by the multigenre saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu. It's insane. I won't give anything away, but in particular set aside some time to listen to the Menuets & Gigue from the first suite without any distractions.

https://yasuaki-shimizu.com/music/cello-suites-2/

I'm a cellist, played all the suites and always start with them when I return to the instrument after a hiatus. They've been analyzed to death, so my goal when playing is to avoid over-intellectualizing ("learn the changes, then forget them") and just try to take a different emotional journey each time (no way to say that without it sounding sappy), physically leading with my breath.

I get sometimes a bit annoyed by hacker news. And then I get a reply from a cellist. Thank you for playing and making this world a bit better place, you made my day.

My pleasure! I also get annoyed. :) But I appreciate how it helps keep me up to date on how the kids are progamming their computers. (Too complicatedly, I think.)

So I comment almost exclusively on music and 90s Mac nostalgia.

Wow, I had no idea about Yasuaki Shimizu. I listen to Kakashi a lot, and some of his other stuff like that. Thanks a ton.

edit: ow, a lot of reverb though... (though it says "(Ohya Stone Quarry, Utsunomiya)" so I guess it's natural) But It's nice to hear this, I sometimes try playing them on sax too (the Trent Kynaston version is best, supposedly).

Another edit: the double stops are a nice touch!

Wow. Thank you. I love Yasuaki Shimizu, but was not aware of these recordings. I'm going to jump in right now.

Just listened to the first suite. The Menuet was soulful and haunting. The Gigue was fierce and fascinating in contrast to Yo Yo Ma’s. I felt a profound sense of “there’s not enough time left in life to fully appreciate this piece of music.” Thank you for sharing.

My favorite recording of the suites is by Enrico Dindo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a03He2x15qk&list=PLTzGkNV1IX...

I feel offended that Casals didn't make the "favorite recordings" section: https://bachcellosuites.co.uk/bach-cello-suites-home/favouri...

He's the godfather of the Bach suites. All other recordings are derivative.

I would appreciate a breakdown of metal vs gut strings in the recordings.

The most recent episode of the excellent classical music podcast "Sticky Notes" is comparing several recordings of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony: https://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com/100-years-of-beethoven...

Thanks! Never heard of this podcast, quite interesting.

Comparing various recordings is a rabbit hole I like falling into.

Also take a look at CD Review / Building a Library by the BBC

Also Dave Hurwitz on YouTube, who combines a love of the material with a healthy disrespect for the poseur side of classical music fandom

What a great resource! Took me a minute to find their actual recommendations without having to read each review, which is here: https://bachcellosuites.co.uk/bach-cello-suites-home/favouri...

In the 1990s Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with artists in different fields to try to "translate" them to different forms of art:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspired_by_Bach

If you're in Toronto, Canada, you can visit the park that was inspired by No. 1:

* https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/parks-recreation/places...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Music_Garden

As someone who listens to a lot of "Classical" music (more late Classical, early Romantic if we're being specific) I've never really understood the modern universal appeal of Bach.

I find so much of his music quite impenetrable and kind of overwhelming. Things like the Cello Suites with their single line of music very demure. Whenever I try to listen to the Well Tempered Klavier as a set I'm quickly saturated by the third or fourth pair...

It's usually not until I sit down at the piano and play Bach and read the score that I'm then suddenly profoundly moved by the almost divine quality of his music and the "just so" genius writing of his music. But being truly honest I struggle to hear it at face value often - am I just slow / a poor listener?

> am I just slow / a poor listener?

Don't fall into that trap. You like what you like. Bach wrote hundreds of pieces. There's no reason for anyone to "get" or "like" them all, or indeed any single one of them.

Personally, I like some of the piano and cello pieces but they only get played once or twice a year. Whereas his vocal works like the St John Passion and Ich habe genug from cantata BWV82 get played a lot. Everyone is different!

The thing is that when I listen to things like the Goldberg variations and Preludes and Fugues I'm quickly saturated. But if I sit down and play them, and study them their acclaim and brilliance becomes apparent.

So the problem isn't the music or my taste but more that I'm unable to hear their brilliance in the space of one or two listens.

I don't buy this. You can be a poor listener. I am for sure.

Listening is definitely some kind of skill.

I agree. I also get much more out of playing Bach than listening to him. I almost never listen to Bach for pleasure, but I know a few fugues and the like. Playing them makes you feel like a god; listening to them feels like an assault.

The exception, for me, is the Goldberg Variations which I find have a stately and refined beauty. It's one of very few in the classical canon that I find myself returning to over the years.

You're not alone. The British composer Arnold Bax once said "All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine."

That being said, I find his six sonatas and partitas for solo violin to be absolutely lumninous. The famous chaconne being truly sublime.

Some good Bach:

Rostropovich

Prelude from Bach Cello Suite No.1 BWV 1007

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml14kGHCBg0

Also Maurice Gendron as at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPdCJ7nVss&list=PLuc6tv6pjL...

This piece can also do well on violin -- just transpose up an octave and a fifth. I did that on violin, and it was easy, but making really good music out of it, as Rostropovich, is different.

For a violin performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3a9F-LEdiA

I asked Claude Code who the greatest composer of all time was (mostly on a lark) expecting something very non-committal that weighed the accomplishments of the various great composers. Instead, I got back a one word answer: Bach.

regular claude is not so concise, or decisive

One of the pages mentioned a 'cello da spalla, which I hadn't heard of before, so I found this YouTube video introducing it and playing part of a prelude on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD4kNY34AoE

I enjoy instruments that, for whatever reason, seem to have been discarded by progress - viola da gamba, mandolincello, etc. It's amazing how rich all of our musical traditions are, that we have so many delightful variations on so many lovely ideas.

Since you mention the viola da gamba, I'll mention that in the US, the Viola da Gamba Society of America[0] is keeping the tradition alive. I'm a rusty cellist and learned of the vdgsa a few years ago. They have an annual conclave for players of all levels to learn, play, and have a good time. There was a conclave about 2.5 hrs from my home, and it was advertised as free for beginners, with the option to rent an instrument for the duration of the event across ~ a week. I also play the bass guitar and double bass, which like the gamba family are tuned in fourths vs fifths for the violin family, so I figured I'd show up and try my hand at the instrument.

They are a friendly and welcoming community maintaining a rental network in the US for the different types of violas da gamba. They have a strong interest as an organization in funding the continued scholarship, performance, and community for these forgotten instruments. It was very cool. I've since gotten my hands on a rental bass viol, though I haven't had as much time for it as I'd like.

[0] https://www.vdgsa.org/

Ah, that's really cool and I'm going to stay the hell away lest it trigger my GAS :P

  number of bach cello suite recordings by decade parsed from the 'a-z' page:

  1940s | # (n=1) (* Casals, 1948)
  1950s | ## (n=4)
  1960s | ##### (n=10)
  1970s | ####### (n=14)
  1980s | ######## (n=16)
  1990s | ###################### (n=41)
  2000s | ############################## (n=57)
  2010s | ################################################## (n=92)
  2020s | ################### (n=35)

  (*) notable recording

Awesome, i love listening to Bach while developing.

While you're here, what other classical music can you recommend, especially for listening while working/focusing?

For me, it's currently

- Max Richter, discovered recently and he is fantastic

- The 'New Classical Essentials' playlist in Apple Music

- Brahms, especially String Sextet No. 1 (warning: can make Vulcans cry)

I wish I could listen to classical music while using my brain. I can't. I end up listening to the music.

I've been listening to Scarlatti keyboard sonatas recently. They're great. He was born the same year as Bach.

I love the Schubert song cycles, like Winterreise. There's enough overall stability to get into flow state but variety across each song.

I'm probably a dinosaur but I have yet to find a version better than the very old Fischer-Dieskau/Gerald Moore combo.

I wish Spotify would allow me to easily compare the same classical pieces with different recordings!

Wonderful “extracurricular” articles like this are one of my favorite things about HN. Thanks!!

Are there links to YouTube videos of recordings? Or do I need to find it elsewhere ?

The Netherlands Bach Society has actually started a huge project to produce high quality video recordings to all of Bach's catalogue. You can find the videos on their YT channel (https://www.youtube.com/bach) or www.allofbach.com.

I'm pretty sure I learned about this project from HN many, many years ago.

Shouting into the void no doubt, but there are few things in life that make me more disappointed than people extending that first note in the first cello suite. The prelude is a thing of such crystalline beauty and I have no problem with you elaborating on it later, but the way literally everyone plays it is jarring right out of the gate.

Anyway, while we're at it, if you like your cello with a little bit more welly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUgdbqt2ON0

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