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active figure in the nineteenth-century revival of Bach’s music—considered the viola and trombone to be suitable instruments for performing Bach’s Cello Suites. Musicians today tend to favor Urtext editions over heavily edited nineteenth-century editions. But it is worth considering what can be learned from rejected, historical editions such as Stade’s. His edition is the earliest documentation of the Cello Suites being played on viola, decades earlier than was previously known. Moreover, editorial markings in editions from the late-nineteenth century and especially piano accompaniments provide insight into how musicians of that era conceptualized and interpreted the Cello Suites during the decades when these pieces first began to enter into the concert repertoire. 19 Finally, although the practice of playing Bach’s Cello Suites with piano accompaniment fell out of favor about a century ago, piano accompaniments could still be useful today for pedagogical purposes, either to support work on intonation or, more abstractly, for learning to conceptualize the implicit harmony and polyphony in Bach’s unaccompanied music. Footnotes 1 All editions of Bach’s Cello Suites are cited under the names of their editors (rather than the composer) in the notes and bibliography. For editions predating 1900, publication dates are estimates based on plate numbers or other corroborating evidence. I am grateful to Chris tina Fuhrmann and Paul Cary of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute at Baldwin Wallace University for their support of this research. 2 Louis Svećenski, Johann Sebastian Bach, Six Suites for Violoncello: Adapted, Revised and Fingered for Viola (New York: Schirmer, 1916). See also David M. Bynog, “The Viola in America: Two Centuries of Progress,” Notes 68, no. 4 (June 2012): 746. 3 Hermann Ritter, ed., Sonaten für die Altgeige (Viola alta) allein von Joh. Seb. Bach. (Suite 1–4) nach den Sonaten für Violoncello allein, übertragen von Hermann Ritter (Leipzig, Merseburger, [c. 1885]). 4 Franz Zeyringer, Literature für Viola , 2 nd ed. (Hartberg: Schönwetter, 1976), 64. 5 Thomas Tatton, “Bach Violoncello Suites Arranged for Viola: Available Editions Annotated,” Journal of the American Viola Society 27 (Summer 2011): 5–27. 6 See Maurice W. Riley, The History of the Viola , vol. 1, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: Braun-Brumfield, 1993), 210–17. See

also Watson Forbes, “Ritter, Hermann” in Grove Music Online , ed. Deane Root, published January 20, 2001; and Ulrich Drüner, “Ritter, Hermann” in MGG Online , ed. Laurenz Lütteken, published November 2016. 7 Friedrich Wilhelm Stade, ed., Joh. Seb. Bachs Composi tionen für Violoncello Solo. Mit Begleitung des Pianoforte herausgegeben von Dr. W. Stade (Leipzig: Gustav Heinze, [c. 1864]). Biographical material on Stade in English is limited. A recent life-and-works study (in German) is Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Friedrich Wilhelm Stade: Leben und Werk des Altenburger Kofkapellmeisters (Altenburg: E. Reinhold, 2022); Stade, ed., Sonaten für Violoncello Solo. Mit Begleitung des Pianoforte herausgegeben von Dr. W. Stade J. S. Bach, Compositionen für Violoncello solo. Mit Begleitung des Piano herausgegeben von Dr. W. Stade (Leipzig: Gustav Heinze, [c. 1871]). The revised edition was subsequently republished by Peters c. 1888. 8 Bradley James Knobel, “Bach Cello Suites with Piano Accompaniment and Nineteenth-Century Bach Dis covery: A Stemmatic Study of Sources,” DMA diss., Florida State University, 2006. See also Max H. Y. Wong, “Arrangements as a Creative Tool Towards the Performance of J. S. Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin BWV 1001–1006,” PhD diss, Royal Col lege of Music, 2023. 9 Knobel, “Bach Cello Suites with Piano Accompani ment,” 35–55. 10 Elizabeth I. Field, “Performing Solo Bach: An Exami nation of the Evolution of Performance Traditions of Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Sonatas from 1802 to the Present,” (DMA diss., Cornell University, 1999), 5. 11 Stade’s edition was preceded by two solo-cello editions, both from the mid-1820s: (1) a c. 1824 edition, probably edited by Louis-Pierre Norblin, originally published in Paris by Janet et Cotelle and subsequently republished c. 1825 in Leipzig by Probst, and (2) a c. 1826 edition edited by Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer, published in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel. See George Kennaway, “Bach Solo Cello Suites: An Overview of Editions,” mhm.hud. ac.uk/chase/article/bach-solo-cello-suites-an-overview-of editions-george-kennaway (accessed March 1, 2024). 12 Cellist Julius Klengel (1859–1933) and pianist E. Steinberger recorded Stade’s cello-piano arrangement of the Sarabande from Suite No. 6 around 1927. The recording is included in Keith Harvey, ed., The Re corded Cello: The History of the Cello on Record, Vol. 2 (Pearl, GEMM9984–86, 1992); and Julius Klengel: A Celebration (Cello Classics, CC1024, 2012); originally released 1936 by Decca-Polydor (DE 7062).

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 2, Fall 2024