Posted by Aubrey Foard on August 14, 2002 at 23:27:02:
In Reply to: Bach Cello Suites posted by Hiram Diaz on August 14, 2002 at 04:32:35:
Hi,
Funny you should bring this up, I was just researching interpretation of the cello suites. It's essentially two sided: the romantic, musical way (think Mendelssohn playing Bach) or the authentic, scholarly way. The romantic way usually involves varying dynamics and interpretation at will in order to be more expressive and pleasing to the modern ear. The authentic way may involve holding true to each movement's rounded binary form (all repeats are good) and keeping a stricter tempo.
There are some sources you may wish to consult: Dmitry Markevitch (who gave the premier of all six suites at Carnegie) is considered one of the leaders of the scholar's side. This would be a good place to start for his side: http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Reviews/bach_mark.htm
The romantic side is championed more or less by Pablo Casals, though I have not found much writing on it. The International Cello Society (www.cello.org) has many other more neutral articles relating to this.
Another problem we face as interpreters is the question of which edition to choose. There are at present over 100 editions of the cello suites. This is due to the fact that the original Bach manuscript was lost, and the one that was copied off of most was by his wife, Anna Magdelena. You can see the problem.
there are two other sources you might want to look at:
http://www.yeodoug.com - Doug Yeo has some info on interpreting these suites as a brass player
http://www.jsbach.org - the most comprehensive Bach site
Then again, you might look at all this, decide it's bull and do it the way you think it sounds best. I think many people have done this before, and it comes out sounding great.
Thanks,
Aubrey