I'm kind of surprised that I need to ask this question, I figured surely someone would have asked such in preparation for auditions etc., however a search turned up nothing. My question is simply this, is there a general consensus as to which of the movements from any of the suites is the "best" or "easiest" place to start? I guess let's make this question a little broader and hopefully more useful to someone later on by discussing playing at cello pitch and at "bass pitch". As for my purposes, I am currently working on the first movement of Vanhal and Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, however I've been on a Bach kick lately and would like to start hacking through one of them. That being said I am no where near the point where I could hope to capture the musicality required of the Suites, so I am most interested in knowing which are the easiest to get under one's fingers.
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Double Bass "Easiest" Bach Cello Suite
- Thread starter musicman1586
- Start date
Sorry to just get back, had a busy month so far. I appreciate this link, but personally I think there is more to discuss still. The tone of that thread borders on negative and discouraging, but given the number of schools and orchestras that now require at least one movement from a suite as part of the audition process I don't think this is a dead subject. If you had to start all over again, where would you start (and why)? Or make it an ultimatum: you are forced to say what you think the easiest movement of the suites is, what do you say?
Asking which is the "easiest" Bach suite movement is like asking which is the "easiest" marathon to run; but we all understand the question. Everyone reading this forum knows that none of the suite movements are "easy", and they require years of study and work. But, putting all that aside, the ones I keep coming back to are:
Suite # 1- Courante, Menuet I and II, and Gigue
Suite # 4- Gigue
Suite # 5- Gigue
For years (decades!) I played the Sterling edition, but lately I've been playing the Wenziger (Barenreiter) edition, exactly as written, using my low C. If you don't have a low C, I recommend the Sterling. If you always wanted to play the cello or the viola, you could play the suites at pitch, but not me. I play the bass, and I want the floor to shake and my fillings rattle when I hit that low C.
Suite # 1- Courante, Menuet I and II, and Gigue
Suite # 4- Gigue
Suite # 5- Gigue
For years (decades!) I played the Sterling edition, but lately I've been playing the Wenziger (Barenreiter) edition, exactly as written, using my low C. If you don't have a low C, I recommend the Sterling. If you always wanted to play the cello or the viola, you could play the suites at pitch, but not me. I play the bass, and I want the floor to shake and my fillings rattle when I hit that low C.
Hi,
J.S.Bach Cello Suite V is written in 'scordatura' (i.e. different tuning) at CGDG. But the music is in 'written' -- not 'sound', therefore if you play it with other instrument needs to be transcribed to 'sound' notation.
I had spare time to transcribed it, took even more time to entering it to score. Enjoy.
Bach Cello Suite V Sound Transcript
zmz
J.S.Bach Cello Suite V is written in 'scordatura' (i.e. different tuning) at CGDG. But the music is in 'written' -- not 'sound', therefore if you play it with other instrument needs to be transcribed to 'sound' notation.
I had spare time to transcribed it, took even more time to entering it to score. Enjoy.
Bach Cello Suite V Sound Transcript
zmz
