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Wednesday, 08 February 2012 Written by René Berman

 

American Author Eric Siblin wrote a praiseworthy book about the cellosuites of Bach, I would recommend it to anyone. Like all books covering the subject of the Bachsuites, I didn't believe a word he wrote.

Since there is no diary of the composer and almost no allusions to the Suites from his contemporaries we can not write with certainty about these compositions.

Nonetheless, books such as Eric Siblin's remain inspiring, and encourage the reader to keep searching and thinking beyond his current knowledge. One of Siblin's thoughts, which I never heard of before, was that the Bachsuites might have been composed over a period of at least a decade. This was completely new to me, because I had always seen an inner similarity in the suites. Now I was forced to think about the differences in style, technique and content..

No, the 6 suites might have been written as a set, but music lives by enjoying the difference. The one who considers the Suites as coming from different years might be wrong, but could bring more life to his interpretation.