Bach Marathon

I just sat through the second recital Elliott Cheney gave of the Bach Solo Cello Suites.   Tonight he played #2, 4, and 6, after doing #1, 3, and 5 last Sunday night.   That’s a real feat of endurance.  It’s so rare to hear all six played at one time, for that very reason.  These suites are kind of the pinnacle of the cello repertoire.  He said he’s wanted to do this ever since he started learning them at age eight. 

I can’t even imagine having all six performance-ready at the same time.  It was tiring just watching him play.  Of course, I was feeling tired during the opening prelude and thinking, “Oh boy, seventeen more movements to go.”  It’s been a long day already.  I wonder what good turning the clocks back an hour was when I woke up at 5:43 this morning and could not go back to sleep.

I didn’t take A this week.  He liked last week’s concert but was getting pretty wiggly by the end and in the middle of the last movement, leaned over and asked, “Where does the water for Niagara Falls come from?”  Oh well, he’s being exposed to great music, right?  No matter what else his brain may be mulling over.

But it was a great concert, two great concerts actually.  I was more interested in last week’s program.  I’m much more familiar with the first three suites.  They’re the ones I can actually play.  It was fun to see #6 played though.  It’s one thing to look at the music, and quite another to see how technically demanding (or insane depending on your point of view) it really is. 

I was especially interested in #5 last week.  It’s written in scordatura which, as Mr. Cheney explained it, means an out of tune cello.  The audience laughed.  More accurately would be a mis-tuned cello.  The A-string is tuned down to G which gives a cello a different, darker sonority, especially on the chords in the C minor suite.  Things like that fascinate me.  I have the sheet music for both regular tuning and scordatura which I’ve played around with on occasion.  It’s bizarre though to read notes on the page but have different pitches come from your instrument.  It messes with the brain.  But maybe I’ll give it a try again some time.  Hearing recitals always makes me want to go home and practice. 

There’s a quote of Pablo Casals, the great Spanish cellist, that I really like:

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner.  It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life.  I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach.  I cannot think of doing otherwise.  It is sort of benediction on the house.

DH keeps telling me I should get up and play Bach every morning, to sanctify the house.  The way I function when I first get up,  I don’t think Bach would be a good thing just then.