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Double Bass Bach Suite 1 - questions from Hillwilliam country

#141
I don't think Jonathan Butler's performance was depressed or depressing either, but his lack of visual showmanship, and stone face, may of been what Zander was eluding to.

Song and dance, showmanship, whatever you want to call it, has value in any performance, classical, jazz or pop. Zander is a showman. Nobody wants to see a performer stare at the floor, music stand or show zero emotion. Zander's point, imho, is the audience feels what the performer conveys.

Bernstein's conducting to me is what Casal's is to playing cello, kinda perfect. I suspect Zander would have good things to say about Bernstein.
 
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#142
CaseyVancouver said:
More interpretation of the Suite 1 praeludium, with suggestions by a very experienced musician. I hope Chris does not mind we explore the suites in this manner and get a bit off his original topic.

Benjamin Zander, an English conductor, cellist and musical director of the Boston Philharmonic, critiques an already fine performance by a young cellist. He points out that Bach should be played with joy by the performer, and that joy is contagious to the audience. He also suggests that the bass root notes in the suites (which we all make a big deal about, since we are bassists) perhaps could be played blended into the arpeggios.

His Bach Suite ideas may be fresh to us bassist's and cellist's. Some of which we could use, some not, but still interesting ideas.

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I love this!
 
#143
CaseyVancouver said:
More interpretation of the Suite 1 praeludium, with suggestions by a very experienced musician. I hope Chris does not mind we explore the suites in this manner and get a bit off his original topic.

Benjamin Zander, an English conductor, cellist and musical director of the Boston Philharmonic, critiques an already fine performance by a young cellist. He points out that Bach should be played with joy by the performer, and that joy is contagious to the audience. He also suggests that the bass root notes in the suites (which we all make a big deal about, since we are bassists) perhaps could be played blended into the arpeggios.

His Bach Suite ideas may be fresh to us bassist's and cellist's. Some of which we could use, some not, but still interesting ideas.

Click to expand...


I thought the interpretation in the video suffered from 'loss in translation'. The phrasing felt very random and contrived, with too much emphasis on the tenuti. I thought this, combined with the staccato style, led to a loss of form. Zander's point of blending the arpeggio is a good one, but IMHO it was never fully realised due to the cellist's insistance on playing everything detached. I found it very 'distracting', as Zander put it. The parts that were played legato in the second rendition just stood out as emphasing unimportant or less important parts of the harmony to the detriment of 'the long form', which I thought got somewhat buried. I thought the 'measured internal discourse' qualities of the melody through the three sections were absent. Instead it came across more like a 'domestic argument' that never gets resolved, just set aside for another day, leaving the listener with a sense of dread in anticipation of 'round 2'. Of course this is just an opinion, and if the intent was to jarre the audience then it was a success. YMMV.
 
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#144
Apologies if this is covered in the middle of this thread; I haven't read everything.

For me as a classical guitarist, I once went on an online expedition of sorts to find all the various transcriptions. I found it played in the original key, G, and transcribed in A, in C, and in D. The D version, with a drop-D tuning, is popular, IMO, because Segovia transcribed it and played it way back when. His version is fascinating. To be critical, it's a pretty fair distance removed from the cello original, but in praise of it, I think all the additions are pretty Bach-like. And there are many other transcriptions in D.

Stanley Yates is someone for whom I have tremendous admiration and respect as a guitarist. He is a real Renaissance Man of the classical guitar - scholar, editor, and world-class performer, too, not to mention teacher. Stanley transcribes this in C for the guitar.

The A version is interesting because it's almost at cello pitch. And nobody really plays it much in G because it just doesn't work that well, but you can do it.

Given that there are all these things one can look it, I think it makes interesting reading to see how various people have handled it on an instrument that has the same kind of low E as the bass.

5 string upright with a low B, anyone?

Chris, one of the carryovers to my bass playing from classical guitar is that I sometimes use my right thumb to play on the last string. I do this more on electric bass than on upright, but I'm wondering if you've considered thumb as part of your pizz version? It can make some of the arpeggios easier to do.

-S-
 
#145
Steve Freides said:
Chris, one of the carryovers to my bass playing from classical guitar is that I sometimes use my right thumb to play on the last string. I do this more on electric bass than on upright, but I'm wondering if you've considered thumb as part of your pizz version? It can make some of the arpeggios easier to do.
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Hi Steve - small world, as I also spent a number of years as a classical guitarist back in the early 80's. I generally only use my right thumb for double stops with a string in between so that I can get a "double rest stroke" sound on the double stop. I have been away from the suites for a month or so while preparing for various other performances, but plan to go back soon. I have found a basic way forward to play the entire second suite in Dminor, and am looking forward to fleshing that out.
 
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#146
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Hi Steve - small world, as I also spent a number of years as a classical guitarist back in the early 80's. I generally only use my right thumb for double stops with a string in between so that I can get a "double rest stroke" sound on the double stop. I have been away from the suites for a month or so while preparing for various other performances, but plan to go back soon. I have found a basic way forward to play the entire second suite in Dminor, and am looking forward to fleshing that out.
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I look forward to a YouTube when you're ready. I recently added cello to the list of things I play - OMG, so much easier to find the notes since they're spaced about the same as a guitar - so I doubt I'm going to tackle the cello suites on upright bass any time soon. But on cello ....

-S-
 
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#148
LouisF said:
You may have to subscribe to the NYTimes for the videos.
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Most of the videos are on YouTube, so no subscription should be necessary.

A couple of comments on the subject of Bach cello suites on bass, probably all of which I've made before, likely even in this thread but, hey, I'm old, so I get to repeat myself, repeat myself, repeat myself:

I completely don't get playing the cello suites on a bass at cello pitch - for that, put the bass down and pick up a cello. It's certainly an exercise in playing in thumb position to play them at concert pitch on a bass, so I'm OK with someone practicing as an exercise so long as I don't have to listen to it. (Is there a crankly-old-man emoji?)

Somewhere on YouTube, there's an interview with Glenn Gould (famous Canadian pianist and quirky fellow) where he talks about transcription. He says that some music is written idiomatically for a particular instrument while some music is put together in such a way that it's self-contained - the structure is what matters, not the instrument, and he says Bach is an example of this self-contained kind of music. (I'm paraphrasing - he said it much better.) So in this regard, I think playing the cello suites on the bass, at bass pitch or transposing to a bass-friendly key, is a valid endeavor in my book. (Chopin on classical guitar is done more often than it should be because it shouldn't ever be done - it's piano music, gosh darnit, so play it on the piano or shut the book and walk away.)

-S-
 
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#153
Apologies for very late arrival to this thread. I recently bought Lauren Pierce's transcription/fingerings for this piece (here Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G major), has anyone else?

I'm trying to reconcile the marked fingerings with her YT video and can't. Her music asks for the 4th string to be tuned down to D but the video seems to show her fingering both the C and A in bar 21 at the octave position. This seems to indicate she has detuned the 4th string to C.

If Lauren still contributes to this forum, perhaps she could clarify? Any other comments welcome.
 
#154
ricobasso said:
Apologies for very late arrival to this thread. I recently bought Lauren Pierce's transcription/fingerings for this piece (here Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G major), has anyone else?

I'm trying to reconcile the marked fingerings with her YT video and can't. Her music asks for the 4th string to be tuned down to D but the video seems to show her fingering both the C and A in bar 21 at the octave position. This seems to indicate she has detuned the 4th string to C.

If Lauren still contributes to this forum, perhaps she could clarify? Any other comments welcome.
Click to expand...

I found that playing those low notes 8va in standard tuning to be perfectly good. Everything is already 8vb compared to the 'cello amd I find anything below E quite hard on the ears. I think if I was looking for the low C I would consider 5ths tuning like the 'cello, i.e. CGDA. Just dropping E to C would create too many other fingering/shifting challenges, IMHO.
 
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#155
SteveCS said:
I found that playing those low notes 8va in standard tuning to be perfectly good. Everything is already 8vb compared to the 'cello amd I find anything below E quite hard on the ears. I think if I was looking for the low C I would consider 5ths tuning like the 'cello, i.e. CGDA. Just dropping E to C would create too many other fingering/shifting challenges, IMHO.
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That is also an approach I like to use.
The point that needs proper consideration when transposing 8va low notes, is to select a musical phrase to be played 8va in a manner that is not disruptive. It is usually quite obvious how to make such choices.

The only case for which I find no really satisfactory solution is when encountering the (typical for Bach) cadence (high)V - (low)V - I, with (low)V out of the range. Transposing 8va the whole cadence means the whole thing is too high and lacks bottom range. Transposing only the (low)V is unsatisfactory because the glorious octave jump becomes a quite dull unison.
 
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#156
Papageno said:
The only case for which I find no really satisfactory solution is when encountering the (typical for Bach) cadence (high)V - (low)V - I, with (low)V out of the range. Transposing 8va the whole cadence means the whole thing is too high and lacks bottom range. Transposing only the (low)V is unsatisfactory because the glorious octave jump becomes a quite dull unison.
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I found the only really nasty part of the G prelude in standard tuning is bar 25, where the D is played twice in the same octave - tends to add a 'false start' to what should be a dramatic ascent.
20210630_122724.jpg

The long descent to D isn't too bad going up to the D as there is a slight pause so the note can be played with a rounder tone and given a chance to bloom and decay nicely.

I've just noticed that this thread is on the DB side. There are similar threads in EB land and I play this stuff on EB not DB, so feel free to ignore!!

YMMV
 
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#157
SteveCS said:
I found the only really nasty part of the G prelude in standard tuning is bar 25, where the D is played twice in the same octave - tends to add a 'false start' to what should be a dramatic ascent. View attachment 4318754
The long descent to D isn't too bad going up to the D as there is a slight pause so the note can be played with a rounder tone and given a chance to bloom and decay nicely.

I've just noticed that this thread is on the DB side. There are similar threads in EB land and I play this stuff on EB not DB, so feel free to ignore!!

YMMV
Click to expand...
For the situation you point out, I would be tempted to play the first 5 notes 8va, and then continue as written. I find that the 7th descending skip in the middle of an ascending scalar line is not disruptive of the line, provided is does not take place on a downbeat, and that the ear tends to accept it as a continuously ascending line.
 

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