Bach:
Cello Suites (complete). Ailbhe
McDonagh, cello. Steinway & Sons. $21.99 (2 CDs).
Bach’s six suites for solo cello are more than a rite of passage for
cellists. They are an invitation to sublimity, a chance not only to interpret
the music but also to put one’s own stamp on it – frequently multiple times
during one’s performing career, since the suites’ meaning and significance seem
to change considerably over time as a performer gains familiarity with the
music plus his or her own maturity and mastery. The same happens to be true for
audiences: no matter how many cellists one hears in this music, there is always
something new to discover, some way in which the tripartite experience
(composer + performer + instrument) differs from all others and sheds new light
on a listener’s perception.
Just as Bach’s religious music transcends the Lutheran tradition in
which it was created, so the cello suites and other instrumental works are
unbound by time or geography – a reality further documented in the new Steinway
& Sons recording featuring Ailbhe McDonagh, whose status as the first Irish
cellist to record all six suites is a matter that is both of justifiable pride
and wholly irrelevant to the music.
McDonagh’s personal vision of the suites is a restrained Romantic one
rather than one that is historically focused or determined to play the music as
Bach and his contemporaries would have heard it. She does not hesitate to use
crescendos and diminuendos, swells, rubato
and other techniques of emphasis in order to bring out the underlying emotional
connective tissue of the suites. This means that their foundational structure
tends to be somewhat diminished: notably, the dancelike rhythmic elements of
the majority of movements are lessened here, although scarcely absent. It also
means that these performances are strongest in the slower and more-emotive
portions of the suites: the Sarabande
movements are deeply felt and very moving, with the unusual and profound one in
Suite No. 5 – a movement wholly lacking in double stops and thus having an
inherent purity of single-string sound – being a highlight of McDonagh’s cycle.
Actually, there are highlights aplenty here. McDonagh plays an 1833
cello by Andrea Postacchini (1781-1862), who is far better known for his
violins but whose larger string instruments (including violas, basses and guitars)
also show remarkable, almost buttery smoothness of tone and evenness of sound
production in all ranges. Certainly that is the case with McDonagh’s cello,
which does not have quite the sonorous depth of a few other instruments in its lowest
range but which is exceptionally consistent in sound all the way to its top
notes – a distinct advantage for the Bach cello suites. McDonagh plays as if
the cello is an extension of her thinking as well as her body: there is a sense
of unity of player and played that gives the suites a wholly pleasurable sense
of cohesion.
McDonagh handles the suites’ technical demands with apparent ease: the
complexities throughout No. 4, for example, and the string crossings in the
first minuet of No. 2. Her cello’s sound works as well in Suite No. 5
(originally written for scordatura
tuning) and Suite No. 6 (most likely composed for a five-stringed instrument
and frequently played on one) as it does in the first four suites. The elegance
and warmth of the performances come through as well in the few movements with a
single melodic line (not only the Sarabande
of Suite No. 5 but also the second minuets of Suites Nos. 1 and 2, the second
bourrée of Suite No. 3, and the concluding gigue of Suite No. 4) as in the
much-more-frequent movements employing double stops. Those same characteristics
are actually evident in every movement of every suite – and they tend to
overshadow individual movements’ lighter and brighter elements. The French
overture that starts Suite No. 5, for example, is deeply emotional at the
beginning but somewhat less convincing in the speedy fugue used for the latter
part of the movement.
It is always possible, of course, to nitpick any performance of these suites – and it is almost always unfair to do so. The best cellists make these works their own through a strong and consistent commitment to the music and a willingness to share that devotion (which does take on almost spiritual connotations) with listeners. McDonagh’s recording is clearly that of a performer at once highly skilled from a technical standpoint and highly thoughtful from an expressive one. Her rendition of the suites is quite convincing on its own terms – and certainly compares favorably with the many other first-rate recordings of these unsurpassed works.
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