Bach's six suites for solo cello were effectively re-discovered in the 20th century when Pablo Cassals found an old edition in a second-hand shop. He recorded them in the 1930s, and since then every famous cellist has done the same. Deutsche Grammophon has now issued on DVD the versions made by Mischa Maisky in 1986.
They're played in two rooms of a magnificent Palladian mansion, the Villa Caldogno. But these visuals do nothing for the music, which is often private and meditative, even domestic. Critics used to enjoy saying they could imagine Bach dancing with his children to some movements round his kitchen. It would be interesting to see a DVD version based on that perception.
Maisky has sometimes been called a romantic cellist, in contrast to the historically "authentic" interpreters who use period instruments, keep very strictly to the rhythm, and don't vary the tone significantly. But no great artist is going to allow himself to be stopped from expressing the emotion he sees in the music by theories of how it may have sounded 300 years ago. The notes to these DVDs quote CPE Bach (JS Bach's son) saying that performers could add to the written music so long as it was "at least as good, if not better, than the original," suggesting peformance practice wasn't as rigid as modern purists would like us to believe.
Maisky himself refers to the old Casals recording, which was very far from being "authentic" in style. Maisky says he used to think it was "crazy", but that over the years he has come to realize how profoundly it influenced him. These Casals versions are still available on CD in the EMI Classics Great Recordings of the Century series.
- BRADLEY WINTERTON
RSS