Pablo Casals Cello Bach

Casals was one of the very few conductors, and certainly the first, to record the complete Brandenburgs twice – in 1950 with his Prades Festival Orchestra (Columbia LPs) and in 1964-6 with the Marlboro Festival Orchestra (Sony CDs). Incidentally, don't be fooled by their names into assuming that these were amateur ensembles – both were extraordinary groups of top-flight professionals who would come together to study and play over the summer – the cello section of the Marlboro Festival Orchestra included Mischa Schneider (of the Budapest Quartet), Hermann Busch (Busch Quartet) and David Soyer (Guarneri Quartet).

Casals was one of the very few conductors, and certainly the first, to record the complete Brandenburgs twice – in 1950 with his Prades Festival Orchestra (Columbia LPs) and in 1964-6 with the Marlboro Festival Orchestra (Sony CDs). Incidentally, don't be fooled by their names into assuming that these were amateur ensembles – both were extraordinary groups of top-flight professionals who would come together to study and play over the summer – the cello section of the Marlboro Festival Orchestra included Mischa Schneider (of the Budapest Quartet), Hermann Busch (Busch Quartet) and David Soyer (Guarneri Quartet). As recalled by Bernard Meillat, while Casals appreciated research into Baroque playing, he viewed Bach as timeless and universal, and insisted that an interpreter's intuition was far more important than strict observance of esthetic tradition.

Pablo Casals showed the world that Bach's solo cello suites were more than mere teaching exercises. Modern ears weaned on historically informed versions might flinch at Casals' tempo fluctuations and distensions of line. Yet his imposing personality, intense concentration, and penetrating musicianship transcend time. Seth Winner's revelatory transfers restore the warm overtones to Casals' cello missing from EMI's harsher remasterings.

Jean Lauxerois begins his notes to Marc Coppey’s recording of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites by enumerating the many reasons why yet another version of these familiar works “to swell the ever-growing ranks” is superfluous, then explains Coppey’s decision to ignore the arguments as “obedience to a deeper logic, a feeling of necessity”. Lauxerois offers many examples of this “deeper logic”–such as that the Suites somehow correspond to the six days of creation (and on the seventh day God rested…), or that the Suites somehow possess an internal universal code summarizing Leibnitz’s best-of-all-possible-worlds theorem. While it’s impossible to know exactly how obedient Coppey has been to this “deeper logic”, thankfully he delivers an expertly performed set that on purely musical terms renders such rhetorical tripe irrelevant.