JAVS Summer 2011

Recording Reviews Bachian Musings

by Carlos María Solare Not that I am complaining about it, but in the past few months I seem to have spent quite a bit of time with Johann Sebastian Bach’s cello suites. Shortly before Christmas I picked up—on a whim—Eric Siblin’s book, The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2009). Mr. Siblin, of all things a pop music critic, had on a similar whim attended a concert of Bach’s cello suites back in the “Bach Year” of 2000 and just happened to fall in love with the music. He decided to find out as much about it as he could, and this endearing book is the result of his quest. Its thirty-six chapters (one for each movement of the suites) alternatively deal with, firstly, the music’s genesis and its place in Bach’s biography, then with Casals’s discovery of it in late nineteenth-century Barcelona and his subsequent life-long championship, and lastly with the author’s own journey of discovery. Even if I can’t claim to have learned from it much that was really new, Siblin’s enthusiasm for Bach’s music proved contagious, and I found myself looking afresh at the scores—in Bärenreiter’s collected edition of all the authentic sources—and revisiting for myself this world of inexhaustible beauty. I also returned to Casals’s monumental recording of the suites, the first ever made and dating from the 1930s (originally made by EMI, it is now available in several CD reissues). Since then, of course, every famous cellist—as well as a few infamous ones—has set down his view of this music. And I do mean “his view”: I may be wrong, but I can’t think of any complete cycle by a female cellist! Conversely, most of the recordings of these pieces made on the viola seem to be by women! First in line was the redoubtable Lillian Fuchs in the early 1950s. Long out of print, this legendary recording was reissued by the historical label Doremi in 2005, and quite impressive it is! Even if it can’t be called “historically informed,” Ms. Fuchs’s playing transcends any such thoughts. The occasional un-Baroque forays into high positions, slides, and missing cadential trills are more than compensated for by the consistently imaginative phrasing, rhythmic life, and variegated coloring that imbue these readings (Doremi DHR-7801/02). Among other complete sets that have come my way, those by Patricia McCarty (Ashmont 6100), Barbara Westphal (Bridge 9094A/B), and Rivka Golani (CBC MVCD 1141-3) have all, in their very different ways, left fond memories. A recent addition to the viola discography of Bach suites is by Tanya Solomon (Eroica Classical Recordings JDT3433), whose recording hides behind the title Baroque Preludes, Dances and Fugues II (in case you were wondering, vol. I consisted of Bach’s violin Sonatas and Partitas, as

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