[HN Gopher] Bach Cello Suites (2024)
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Bach Cello Suites (2024)
Author : bondarchuk
Score : 185 points
Date : 2025-09-23 12:23 UTC (3 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.
| kashunstva wrote:
| ...which of course is a good reminder not to make
| assumptions about domains in which one has limited or no
| knowledge. I too have spent my entire life in classical
| music - I'm a collaborative pianist. But I have to guard
| against making judgements about popular genres which I
| don't regularly listen to.
| 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.
| nullhole wrote:
| Dvorak's cello concerto in b minor, Rostropovich vs Yo-Yo
| Ma
|
| (I'm strongly in the Rostropovich camp, myself)
| graycat wrote:
| Some Rostropovich, second movement of the Dvorak Cello
| Concerto, as at
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyAMvctMEbI
| koverstreet wrote:
| Jacqueline du Pre played this with fire.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yxtaeFuEQ
| djtango wrote:
| Despite all that I still find myself so drawn to
| interpretations by Rubinstein and Perahia that prize
| themselves on their restraint.
|
| Although Argerich is my goddess so who knows
| esafak wrote:
| Vivaldi's Four Seasons is like that for me; it has to be
| completely re-imagined, like Max Richter's "Recomposed", to
| pique my interest.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Try this one:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8zbPcuIvSM
| mtalantikite wrote:
| My year in review music roundups from Spotify or Apple Music
| have always been totally useless because I code to Steve
| Reich's Music for 18 Musicians almost daily. Something about
| that composition just gets me in the zone and I've been using
| it to study or work to since I first heard it in college 20+
| years ago.
| 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.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| Wow. Thank you. I love Yasuaki Shimizu, but was not aware of
| these recordings. I'm going to jump in right now.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea about Yasuaki Shimizu. I listen to Kakashi
| a lot, and some of his other stuff like that. Thanks a ton.
|
| edit: ow, a lot of reverb though... (though it says "(Ohya
| Stone Quarry, Utsunomiya)" so I guess it's natural) But It's
| nice to hear this, I sometimes try playing them on sax too
| (the Trent Kynaston version is best, supposedly).
|
| Another edit: the double stops are a nice touch!
| 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.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > I play viola
|
| Username checks out.
| cousin_it wrote:
| Yes! The Gavotte en Rondeau from the 3rd Partita is probably
| my favorite Bach piece, beating out even the cello suites.
| Here's a lovely performance by Kavakos:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNy9fH7VaV4
| kashunstva wrote:
| He was just in Toronto earlier in the year and played the
| entire Sonatas and Partitas in back to back concerts on
| sequential days. Spectacular.
|
| Interestingly, his encores were just to replay a movement
| of Bach. I mean, after that, what else?
| jongala wrote:
| Hilary Hahn did the same thing a few years ago. In one
| case, played a movement from a sonata that wasn't in the
| program, and in another replayed a movement from earlier.
| Both very interesting, and fantastic performances!
| diego_moita wrote:
| > My understanding is that for centuries after Bach's death,
| they were disregarded.
|
| Not exactly.
|
| Bach died in 1750. At this time the "market" for music was
| going through big changes. In Bach's time the main customers
| for music were courts of barons and kings and municipalities.
| That's the career he had, a musikmeister.
|
| But look deeper and you'll see an economic landscape changing:
| the rise of cities, merchants, financial capitalism, etc. A
| bourgeoisie was rising and consuming music in concert rooms,
| opera houses and for private playing. But this bourgeoisie had
| different tastes. They didn't have a deep musical instruction
| so they preferred more "pop" music: easy to listen, easy to
| play, easy to follow. Bach's music is the opposite of it. It
| was out of fashion.
|
| Bach's sons followed this simplified style. Most of all, Carl
| Philip Emanuel Bach was big into it. He got so good at this
| that he became an instructor and mentor to both Mozart and
| Haydn.
|
| But Carl never stopped adoring his father music and used Johan
| Sebastian Bach (his dad) material for teaching. So J.S. Bach
| was widely known and venerated among musicians, including
| Beethoven.
|
| However, the public recognition of Bach's worth only began when
| Mendelssohn made public presentations of his masses, in 1829.
| But this was 37 years before Pablo Casals was born.
| arduanika wrote:
| Yeah, that mostly tracks with my understanding. But can both
| of our stories be true?
|
| The initial obscurity of the cello suites was part of the
| larger disregarding of Bach's work, in the shift from baroque
| to classical style. But did the "re-"regarding of the cello
| suites happen at the same time as Mendelssohn? Or did
| Mendelssohn only start the process, by rediscovering a few
| good pieces, while other pieces like the cello suites waited
| another ~hundred years?
| djtango wrote:
| The composers went in and out of fashion after their
| deaths.
|
| My understanding is that both Mozart and Schubert started
| to fall out of fashion in the early to mid 1900s for being
| "lightweight" and just stepping stones to Beethoven. It
| took some dedicated musicologists from Britain who
| championed them in the 50s to really solidify their
| standing in music history.
|
| I also believe we are now seeing a resurgence of interest
| in Salieri in part thanks to the movie...
| edbaskerville wrote:
| Both are true.
|
| The cello wasn't a popular solo instrument. Pablo Casals
| was a celebrity who made the instrument a much bigger deal.
| The cello suites rode on his celebrity.
| djtango wrote:
| Both Mozart and Chopin were known to hand copy out the
| preludes and fugues and always keep a copy of them on hand
| 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.
| djtango wrote:
| Also take a look at CD Review / Building a Library by the BBC
| 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.
| antognini wrote:
| The music is notated as if there had been no detuning so that
| you can use the natural finger positions. (For example, a
| note that is notated as a C would actually sound as a B.) The
| trade-off is that it makes some of the intervals look wrong,
| but you do get used to it.
|
| Bach's 5th cello suite also uses this technique where the A
| string is tuned down to a G. (The technical term is
| "scordatura.")
| edbaskerville wrote:
| jinx
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this; I'm really enjoying it a lot.
| ohazi wrote:
| Hey, Joe! This is one of my favorite cello pieces -- so
| hauntingly beautiful. I've probably listened to Janos Starker's
| performance dozens of times, but I also liked Inbal Segev's
| version. Parts of it seemed brighter somehow.
| 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
| doo_daa wrote:
| I was going to share this but you beat me to it. I stumbled
| across this a few weeks ago. What an amazing resource.
| 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.
| graycat wrote:
| Some good Bach:
|
| Rostropovich
|
| Prelude from Bach Cello Suite No.1 BWV 1007
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml14kGHCBg0
|
| Also Maurice Gendron as at
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPdCJ7nVss&list=PLuc6tv6pjL...
|
| This piece can also do well on violin -- just _transpose_ up an
| octave and a fifth. I did that on violin, and it was easy, but
| making really good music out of it, as Rostropovich, is
| different.
|
| For a violin performance:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3a9F-LEdiA
| j7ake wrote:
| Are there links to YouTube videos of recordings? Or do I need to
| find it elsewhere ?
| nathan_douglas wrote:
| One of the pages mentioned a 'cello da spalla, which I hadn't
| heard of before, so I found this YouTube video introducing it and
| playing part of a prelude on it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD4kNY34AoE
|
| I enjoy instruments that, for whatever reason, seem to have been
| discarded by progress - viola da gamba, mandolincello, etc. It's
| amazing how rich all of our musical traditions are, that we have
| so many delightful variations on so many lovely ideas.
| bwv848 wrote:
| IMO Rostropovich and Jian Wang[1] have the best recordings, two
| sides of the same coin. I never understand the hype of Yo-Yo Ma.
| And if you like Jian Wang, you would probably also like Viktoria
| Mullova's interpretation of Sonatas and Partitas
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCSqHFgSUhU&list=PL8Hi9pw3gE...
| thom wrote:
| Shouting into the void no doubt, but there are few things in life
| that make me more disappointed than people extending that first
| note in the first cello suite. The prelude is a thing of such
| crystalline beauty and I have no problem with you elaborating on
| it later, but the way literally everyone plays it is jarring
| right out of the gate.
|
| Anyway, while we're at it, if you like your cello with a little
| bit more welly:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUgdbqt2ON0
| AvAn12 wrote:
| Wonderful "extracurricular" articles like this are one of my
| favorite things about HN. Thanks!!
| lagrange77 wrote:
| Awesome, i love listening to Bach while developing.
|
| While you're here, what other classical music can you recommend,
| especially for listening while working/focusing?
|
| For me, it's currently
|
| - Max Richter, discovered recently and he is fantastic
|
| - The 'New Classical Essentials' playlist in Apple Music
|
| - Brahms, especially String Sextet No. 1 (warning: can make
| Vulcans cry)
| edbaskerville wrote:
| I wish I could listen to classical music while using my brain.
| I can't. I end up listening to the music.
|
| I've been listening to Scarlatti keyboard sonatas recently.
| They're great. He was born the same year as Bach.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I feel offended that Casals didn't make the "favorite recordings"
| section: https://bachcellosuites.co.uk/bach-cello-suites-
| home/favouri...
|
| He's the godfather of the Bach suites. All other recordings are
| derivative.
|
| I would appreciate a breakdown of metal vs gut strings in the
| recordings.
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(page generated 2025-09-26 23:01 UTC)