In this essay I’m going to be analysing “Bach’s Six Suites for Violoncello Solo, Suite 2, Sarabande.” In order to do this I am first going to give the reader some background information about Bach and the piece mentioned above. I will also be analysing three different aspects of the piece: bowing, articulation and ornamentation.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685 and died in 1750, Leipzig, Germany. He was a composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque Era (classic fm, 2017). It was thought that Bach composed the solo cello suites between 1717 – 1723, when he was working in Köthen as a composer (classic fm, 2017). Since a copy of the six cello suites were found at least eighteen editors have …show more content…
Throughout the Baroque era the pieces would have been played with either a correli bow or the tartini bow. Both of these bows were very basic but produced the detached bowing style we associate with Baroque music today (Brown, 2004). The German composer, J. F. Reichart (1752 – 1814), commented on how notes should be bowed: “if they are written without any markings”, notes should be bowed “short but not sharply” (Brown, 2004, p.174), this quote explains a bowing technique known by Baroque composers and performers to produce a detached sound and also explains how to play the notes with no articulation marking to get that sound. An understanding of this technique, how it works and where it is used can considerably help today’s performer’s knowledge of how the piece would have sounded when it was performed and some of the composer’s intentions when it was written (Brown, 2004). The detached style of bowing used in the baroque era is known today as de´tache´ bowing. The French composer and cellist, Jean Louis Duport (1749 – 1819) distinguished two types of de´tache´ bowing. The first with a strong bow if you want a full tone and the second with a bouncing bow if you want a lighter tone (Brown, 2004). In the Sarabande the first type of de´tache´ bow stroke described by Duport is used. In the piece there is very little marked in the way of bowing directions, so it would be assumed by the performer to play each note in a …show more content…
There is very little in the way of articulation in this piece. The only articulation in this piece except for the de´tache´ bowing mentioned above is slurs. In the Baroque era a lot of articulation was up to the performer’s interpretation of the composers work (Brown, 2004). Slurs came to string music from vocal music as it was known that the bow was able to emulate singers breathing and phasing, so why not put slurs into string music if it was possible for the instrument. Throughout the Baroque era there was a lot of disagreement of what to do with slurs, so slurs were written in the music but the vast majority of players made their own decisions on what and whether to slur notes. Slurs would mainly be heard in solo music as the performer had the most freedom in this discipline of performing (Cyr, 2012). There is that much discussion around slurs in the Baroque period that editors of music have taken it upon themselves to write in slurs. The Bärenreiter edition that I am using shows (Wenzinger, [no date], p. 13) that Bach had only put in a few slurs, the others are edited in. There are two types of slur marked in this piece: one is the normal every day slur that if you saw it written in a piece above those notes you would play the notes slurred, the other is a slur but it is made up of little dots rather than a solid line. These dotted slurs give the performer the choice whether they want to slur those notes or not. The way
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685 and died in 1750, Leipzig, Germany. He was a composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque Era (classic fm, 2017). It was thought that Bach composed the solo cello suites between 1717 – 1723, when he was working in Köthen as a composer (classic fm, 2017). Since a copy of the six cello suites were found at least eighteen editors have …show more content…
Throughout the Baroque era the pieces would have been played with either a correli bow or the tartini bow. Both of these bows were very basic but produced the detached bowing style we associate with Baroque music today (Brown, 2004). The German composer, J. F. Reichart (1752 – 1814), commented on how notes should be bowed: “if they are written without any markings”, notes should be bowed “short but not sharply” (Brown, 2004, p.174), this quote explains a bowing technique known by Baroque composers and performers to produce a detached sound and also explains how to play the notes with no articulation marking to get that sound. An understanding of this technique, how it works and where it is used can considerably help today’s performer’s knowledge of how the piece would have sounded when it was performed and some of the composer’s intentions when it was written (Brown, 2004). The detached style of bowing used in the baroque era is known today as de´tache´ bowing. The French composer and cellist, Jean Louis Duport (1749 – 1819) distinguished two types of de´tache´ bowing. The first with a strong bow if you want a full tone and the second with a bouncing bow if you want a lighter tone (Brown, 2004). In the Sarabande the first type of de´tache´ bow stroke described by Duport is used. In the piece there is very little marked in the way of bowing directions, so it would be assumed by the performer to play each note in a …show more content…
There is very little in the way of articulation in this piece. The only articulation in this piece except for the de´tache´ bowing mentioned above is slurs. In the Baroque era a lot of articulation was up to the performer’s interpretation of the composers work (Brown, 2004). Slurs came to string music from vocal music as it was known that the bow was able to emulate singers breathing and phasing, so why not put slurs into string music if it was possible for the instrument. Throughout the Baroque era there was a lot of disagreement of what to do with slurs, so slurs were written in the music but the vast majority of players made their own decisions on what and whether to slur notes. Slurs would mainly be heard in solo music as the performer had the most freedom in this discipline of performing (Cyr, 2012). There is that much discussion around slurs in the Baroque period that editors of music have taken it upon themselves to write in slurs. The Bärenreiter edition that I am using shows (Wenzinger, [no date], p. 13) that Bach had only put in a few slurs, the others are edited in. There are two types of slur marked in this piece: one is the normal every day slur that if you saw it written in a piece above those notes you would play the notes slurred, the other is a slur but it is made up of little dots rather than a solid line. These dotted slurs give the performer the choice whether they want to slur those notes or not. The way