There can be few classical music lovers who are not familiar
with the true fairy-story in which, in 1890, the thirteen-year-old
Pablo Casals, newly enamoured of the cello and foraging with
his father in the back-street music-shops of Barcelona, happened
across the Grützmacher’s edition of Bach's lost "Cello
Suites" on a dusty shelf. Prodigiously talented, Casals was
already studying by day in the Escola Municipal de Música
and moonlighting in a café trio; the re-discovery of
Bach’s neglected suites changed both his life and the
course of twentieth century music for good.
He practised them assiduously for another thirteen years before
finally feeling able to perform them in public. To do so, he
had to evolve new techniques and arrive at an understanding
of this remarkable music. He came to espouse a philosophy of
performance based upon the principle that no matter how abstracted,
stylised and removed this music had become, it was still essentially
the music of dance and as such required the performer to invest
it with a Terpsichorean vigour, vitality, elegance and grace.
It was another quarter of a century before he could be persuaded
by EMI to record them.
Casals released these suites from the fate of many a Bach masterpiece
over two hundred years, of being considered a dry, technical
exercise of no particular value beyond its use as practice fodder
to engender facility and flexibility. Such was Casals’
emotional investment in this music that he found performing
and recording them physically exhausting - though in later years
he would willingly perform from them for grateful visitors such
as Rostropovich. The recordings here were made two at a time,
first at Abbey Road, then in Paris between 1936 and 1939; it
must surely have been an additional emotional spur to Casals,
fierce Republican and champion of liberty, that they coincided
with the ghastly events of the Spanish Civil War.
We do not know exactly when Bach composed these suites but they
were probably completed at Cöthen by about 1720. We are
not sure for whom they were written, but he was evidently a
cellist of surpassing skill; possibly court musicians Abel or
Linigke, or even Prince Leopold himself. The original manuscript
is lost but we have two unreliable copies made in Bach’s
lifetime, one made in 1730 by his second wife, Anna Magdalena.
We therefore have no guidance from the composer regarding performance
practice and there are further mysteries and peculiarities,
such as the fact that the fifth suite requires scordatura
- the tuning down of the A string to G, to make some chords
easier to play - and the sixth seems to have been written for
a five-string cello or viola da gamba, with an E string added
above the A to accommodate the very high passages. Many cellists
find other approaches in no. 5, avoiding the intonation problems
associated with retuning, and some play the sixth on a different
instrument; others make adjustments to play it on the normal
four-string cello. Most simply concoct their own performing
edition; it seems to work.
In the end, these are “just” unaccompanied dance
suites. The richness of the result is partly the result of Bach’s
ability to suggest a multiplicity of lines and voices which
continue to sing in the “mind’s ear” of the
performer and listener. Registers and tempi and dynamics alternate
in bewitching fashion and there are is always more - heard and
unheard - going on than at first appears.
Listening to these miraculously preserved and restored recordings
by Casals, I am immediately struck by the sheer life-enhancing
energy and attack of his bowing. No pusillanimous playing safe
here; the performances leap out of the speakers as if they were
recorded last month, not over seventy years ago. These are the
First Folio, the Urtext, the paradigm of performances, and it
would be a brave man who would dare to disparage them.
I t is now fashionable to remark that Casals’ Romantic,
open-hearted performance style is both outmoded stylistically
and superseded technically. I think the former would have been
scoffed at by acknowledged masters of the instrument such as
Rostropovich and the latter considered supremely irrelevant
by the legion admirers of these discs. The spirit of the man
and the conviction of the music-making quite outweigh any such
petty considerations. In any case, I am neither technically
knowledgeable enough to pass judgement nor concerned that a
few exuberant inaccuracies might in any way compromise the musical
integrity of Casals’ conception.
Looming over every great cellist is the conviction that he must
eventually risk his reputation and record this music. Casals
himself, awed by the challenges it poses, famously procrastinated
before making this recording. His version is the one by which
all others are now measured. Any cellist who commits his interpretation
to posterity is acutely aware of his spirit hovering near, thus
Rostropovich, too, hesitated, unsure whether he was ready to
climb the mountain. Before Casals, the cello suites were by
and large considered to be unplayable and uncongenial as music,
yet they now appear almost foolproof in the hands of great artists
like Gendron, Maisky, Ma, Rosen and those I name below. I am
unqualified to pronounce on the relative merits of all the versions
available. I own five sets, but none of them would be considered
“authentic” in the manner of versions by Anner Bylsma
or Jaap ter Linden; my references in comparison with Casals
are the celebrated versions by Fournier, Starker (his first
on Mercury), Rostropovich and Isserlis, all of which are more
traditional in stamp. I find them all to be supremely satisfying
and sui generis; the mark of Bach’s genius is that this
music will happily tolerate a surprisingly wide range of tempi,
phrasal choice, dynamic shadings - and even recording acoustics.
This not very helpful to a reader seeking a “first choice
recording recommendation”, but it is impossible to suggest
one; there are too many variables. My only advice is to find
one you like. It’s quite difficult to pick a lemon.
A survey of the duration of my five recordings reveals an astonishing
diversity, yet it seems that the Cello Suites will withstand
almost any musical approach. Rostropovich - intense, but not
leisurely - takes well over half an hour longer than Janos Starker
(the fleetest of all at 112 minutes) and fifteen minutes longer
than most. Casals’ timing lies conveniently in the middle
at two hours and ten minutes, as if to illustrate the hypothesis
that interpreters since have felt obliged to make a stand in
some manner against his approach by taking either faster or
slower tempi. One example would suffice to illustrate my point;
look at the variation in timings for the Allemande in suite
no. 6:
Fournier: 5:43 *
Rostropovich: 10:31
Starker: 4:33 *
Isserlis: 7:37
Casals: 7:31
*NB: do not take the repeat
Only Isserlis “agrees” with Casals - yet I will
happily listen to any of them and am inclined to dismiss a great
deal of “odious comparison” as peevish or precious;
these are great artists offering deeply considered interpretations
and tempo is a crude measurement of quality. The Mercury notes
suggest that Starker claimed that subsequent cellists have advanced
beyond their idol in terms of interpretation and technique;
if so, that strikes me as a rash assertion. Starker’s
is certainly a compelling interpretation and does not sound
rushed by virtue of his technical brilliance and the laser-like
intensity of his line. Turning to Rostropovich after listening
to Starker, however, is like eating zabaglione straight after
a lemon sorbet. Rostropovich is far more in the Casals mode:
both are on the majestic, stately side, especially in the Sarabandes,
which are “Romantic” and deeply felt, whereas Starker
is cooler and more forensic.
The similarities between Casals and Rostropovich persist in
their metaphysical perception of the suites, as dictated by
the character of each Prelude as they see it. They make an interesting
comparison:
| Suite |
Casals |
Rostropovich |
1 |
Optimism |
Lightness |
2 |
Tragedy |
Sorrow and Intensity |
3 |
Heroism |
Brilliance |
4 |
Grandeur |
Majesty and Opacity |
5 |
Tempestuousness |
Darkness |
6 |
Bucolic idyll |
Sunlight |
Not much discrepancy here and you can hear the consonance of their
ideas in their playing. There is as singing quality to Casals’
approach and of course the joy in music-making that we associate
with him either as a soloist or a conductor. Starker, by contrast,
is sharper and more alive in his delivery to the irony of the
perkier movements. Casals adopts a free, almost improvisatory
mode in his bowing, tempi, dynamics, tone and phrasing, frequently
employing rubato. I have not heard Yo-yo Ma, but some are alienated
by his comparative restraint and technical precision; similarly,
Isserlis is fleet and lean of tone, inclining towards gentility
and rather too closely recorded, with all the clicks, slides and
grunts which some find atmospheric and others merely irritating.
(Oddly, his Sarabandes really are too slow at times.) I favour
a more overtly emotive approach and thus respond to the Casals-
Rostropovich expansiveness, but some might find this indulgent
and inappropriate to the Baroque, where the emphasis is upon the
linear and cerebral.
So will Casals do? This EMI remastering is very satisfactory and
is by all accounts superior to either the Naxos or the Opera d’Oro
versions. The first EMI attempt attracted a lot of negative reviews
complaining that they had air-brushed out too many frequencies
and killed the immediacy. Whatever noise-reduction system is used,
the essential problem is to find a compromise between what to
leave in and what to take out. Some listeners find the edition
by Opus Kura (a Japanese historical label founded in 2000) to
offer a warmer, more realistic ambient sound but their engineering
has retained a lot more hiss and the set is considerably more
expensive than this bargain EMI twofer. I find it remarkable how
quickly one learns to listen through the patina of swish and engage
with the interpretation; this EMI has historical and aesthetic
claims to be on the shelves of any moderately serious collector
but a first time buyer will probably want the superior sound quality
found in one of the many recommendable modern versions.
Just as Caruso’s voice emerged more cleanly than any other
singer from the acoustic recording process, Casals’ cello
survives the recording technology of his day better than any other
solo instrument; it really is not much of an issue to anyone with
willing ears. He did not produce an especially voluptuous tone,
but the steel in it suits his more strenuous temperament and the
sense of striving after music unheard that his engagement with
Bach suggests. The groanings of his instrument in its lowest reaches
are like birth-pangs; a wondrous, complex creature is born. The
febrile brilliance of Starker, the austere classicism of Fournier
and the volatile idiosyncrasy of Rostropovich are all supremely
viable and rewarding, but the humanity of Casals’ recording
reinforces its claim as an essential supplement - if you will
excuse the oxymoron - to a modern recording.
Ralph Moore
Pablo Casals (cello) 
