[HN Gopher] Bach Cello Suites (2024)
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Bach Cello Suites (2024)
Author : bondarchuk
Score : 58 points
Date : 2025-09-23 12:23 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bachcellosuites.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (bachcellosuites.co.uk)
| gregorymichael wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| jojobas wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/915/
| lukan wrote:
| Nope. Really does not apply here.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| XKCD is just a high brow version of the reaction gif. But
| it carries just as much value.
| vunderba wrote:
| 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.
| pimeys wrote:
| 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...
| edbaskerville wrote:
| 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.
| pimeys wrote:
| 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.
| edbaskerville wrote:
| 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.
| cousin_it wrote:
| My favorite recording of the suites is by Enrico Dindo:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a03He2x15qk&list=PLTzGkNV1IX...
| arduanika wrote:
| 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.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > 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!
| bratsche wrote:
| 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.
| taejavu wrote:
| 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...
| throw0101d wrote:
| 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
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| 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.
| phoh wrote:
| regular claude is not so concise, or decisive
| madcaptenor wrote:
| 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...
| alkyon wrote:
| Thanks! Never heard of this podcast, quite interesting.
|
| Comparing various recordings is a rabbit hole I like falling
| into.
| antognini wrote:
| 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 Kodaly'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
| edvardas wrote:
| 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?
| edbaskerville wrote:
| 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.
| Gehinnn wrote:
| I wish Spotify would allow me to easily compare the same
| classical pieces with different recordings!
| diego_moita wrote:
| 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
| dublin wrote:
| 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.
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