COMPOSERS: Bach
LABELS: Rose
WORKS: Suite for Solo Cello in C, BWV 1007; 'Suite for Solo Cello in A minor, BWV 1008; 'Suite for Solo Cello in in G, BWV 1009 (transcribed for lute)
PERFORMER: Robin Thodey (lute)
CATALOGUE NO: CD 5
Seven works are known to have been expressly written or transcribed for the solo lute by Bach. Robin Thodey has put these aside for the time being, playing instead her own arrangements of three of Bach’s six suites for cello. Curiously, perhaps, she has not included the one cello suite (BWV 1011) which Bach himself arranged for the lute (BWV 995), but at least, in principle, she follows the finest of precedents, though confuses Bach’s compositional sequence of BWV 1011 in her interesting but often subjective introductory essay. Thodey understandably declares her longing to play those cello suites for which Bach did not provide an arrangement, but I find the result unconvincing. Lutenists may elicit much of interest here, but others, especially those among us who know the pieces in their incomparable solo cello versions, will not be satisfied. Nicholas Anderson
Bach: Suite for Solo Cello in C, BWV 1007; 'Suite for Solo Cello in A minor, BWV 1008; 'Suite for Solo Cello in in G, BWV 1009 (transcribed for lute)
Seven works are known to have been expressly written or transcribed for the solo lute by Bach. Robin Thodey has put these aside for the time being, playing instead her own arrangements of three of Bach’s six suites for cello. Curiously, perhaps, she has not included the one cello suite (BWV 1011) which Bach himself arranged for the lute (BWV 995), but at least, in principle, she follows the finest of precedents, though confuses Bach’s compositional sequence of BWV 1011 in her interesting but often subjective introductory essay.
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:29 pm