JS Bach - Cello suites 1-3, BWV 1007-1009 - Frans Brüggen, recorder

Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 0:00 Prelude 2:22 Allemande 6:06 Courante 8:28 Sarabande 10:55 Minuets 1 & 2 13:52 Gigue Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 15:13 Prelude 18:19 Allemande 21:21 Courante 23:43 Sarabande 26:34 Minuets 1 & 2 29:30 Gigue Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 31:45 Prelude 34:53 Allemande 37:34 Courante 40:21 Sarabande 42:43 Bourrées 1 & 2 45:55 Gigue The recorder occupies a curious position in 18th century music. Because of the recorder’s special tone colour, it was regularly used in the orchestra as an “effects” instrument: baroque convention particularly associated it with scenes of love as well as scenes of death and the supernatural as in Bach’s Cantata No. 106. As a result, full time professional recorder players were even rarer in the 18th century than they are today. The recorder was basically an orchestral “doubling“ instrument and was usually played by the oboists. There seem to have been no great masters of the recorder to inspire composers, as there were for the oboe, the violin or the trumpet and consequently the number of masterpieces to be found in the recorder’s solo repertoire is small. Recorder music there is in abundance, but most of it in the form of solo sonata or chamber music of the “not too difficult“ variety. Then, as now, the recorder was immensely popular as an amateur instrument because its rudiments are comparatively easy to learn (although to master it perfectly is all the more difficult). It is ironic that today the few really outstanding baroque recorder parts which do exist. such as those in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos No. 2 and 4, are almost regularly performed on the flute and often stated to be “flute“ parts. Such confusion can occur because the word “flute“ or “flauto“ actually meant recorder to baroque composers. When they required the transverse instrument they added some qualification: thus German flute or flauto traverso. Considering the fact that the number of brilliant compositions for the recorder is so very small, an outstanding master of the instrument like Frans Brueggen is well legitimated to try to establish superb music for the recorder by arranging compositions that were not originally written for this instrument; any attempt of this kind is no sacrilege as long as the arrangements are carried out as carefully and with as much musicological knowledge as Mr Brueggens arrangements of the first three of Bach’s famous Suites for Violoncello Solo. The six Suites were composed about 1720 in Coethen and have come down to us in two handwritten copies by people who were close to Bach during his lifetime: Anna Magdalena Bach, his second wife. and the organist Johann Peter Kellner. (A later copy may be disregarded here.) Mr Brueggen’s arrangement for the alto recorder retains as many of the actual notes of Anna Magdalena Bach’s copy (Kellner’s serving for obvious corrections) as possible. Some alterations had to be made, however. Since in a version for recorder many of the slurs which appear in the handwritten copies seem impracticable, Mr Brueggen has only kept those slurs which could be transposed to the recorder without running into situations which do not correspond with the esthetics and the technical nature of the recorder of Bach’s time. As Mr Brueggen felt that one would lose too much if one were to eliminate the low e’ as well as the high f“’-sharp, he has kept them almost everywhere. In order to create a better translation from typical features of the cello (such as strong low notes) into typical feature of the recorder (such as weak low notes) he has often transposed very low notes of the cello into very high notes of the recorder. Although the recorder has no chance of equalling the real possibilities of the cello with respect to the performance of double stops and arpeggios, Mr Brueggen miraculously contrived to simulate the same effect by lengthening and shortening, darkening and lightening the sounds of his instrument. Notes: EMI Engravings of ruined castles in the Netherlands by Jacobus Schijnvoet.