BACH: CELLO SUITES BWV 1008, 1010 & 1012 arr. for guitar - Jorge Caballero

CABALLERO Bach SUITES FOR VIOLONCELLO SOLO liner notes

When one listens to the Bach 'Cello Suites, a magical dichotomy can be appreciated. At first instance, Bach's writ ing style has been reduced to a minimum, since writing for the 'cello has dispos sessed him of the polyphonic flexibilities that keyboard instruments, or the violin, for that matter, can provide. Therefore, Bach has no other choice than to express through the cello his musical ideas at their core. This primary appreciation, how ever, ought not to imply lack of dramatic content on Bach's part, because, although stylisticaly similar (the organization of the dances foliows a conventional pattern of the baroque suite: an opening prelude, followed by four dances: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, with one additional dance Bach incorporated in each suite), each one of the suites pre sents to the listener a different type of dramatic range, from the lively and extro verted Suite No. 6 to the depths of inner reflection of the 2nd Suite. This contrast is what makes the 'Cello Suites so fascinating, that the emotion ofthe musical content is expressed in the essentials, thus producing a magical resultmusic which gives an allusion of simplicity, and yet, to have it designed so as to contain within itself the dramatic character and intensity typical of Bach's music; music where the power and energy emanating from the written page is matched brilliantly by that of the notes left implied, unwritten.