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Just as there are a lot of different ways to be a cellist, there are a lot of different ways to play
Bach’s Cello Suites. I’m often asked what I think is the best edition of the Cello Suites, and
there’s no clear answer. How do you decide, when at last count there were more than 100
editions to choose from?
What you use will depend very much on your skill level and what you’re hoping to achieve. Are
you a student playing Bach for the first time, or a seasoned pro? Are you invested in the
historically informed performance practice of early music, or are you a traditionalist who prefers
a more “romantic” style of playing? Do you want a lot of guidance in fingerings and bowings, or
do you prefer to add your own?
I’ve spent a lot of time with Bach editions recently as part of a sabbatical book I’ve been writing
on the Cello Suites (currently attempting to find literary representation…pray for me, y’all!), and
comparing editions has been a big part of it. There are just so many of them that I can quite
understand how bewildering it can seem when you’re trying to select one, and I’m not even
going to attempt to comment on them all because it would take a very long time. What I’ll do
instead is to divide them by category and address the pros and cons of the categories. There is,
of course, some overlap, but broadly speaking we can sort editions into eight groups:
(1) Eighteenth-century sources, (2) modern scholarly editions without “practical” performance
suggestions, (3) modern scholarly editions with suggestions, (4) unmarked editions, (5)
analytical editions, (6) performance editions by cellists, (7) “pedagogical” editions, (8) curiosities
that don’t fit neatly into any category but are interesting to know about.
Source C (Johann Nikolaus Schober and another copyist whose name we don’t know) and
Source D (anonymous copyist) date to later in the eighteenth century. Just as Sources A and B
are somewhat similar to each other, Sources C and D are somewhat similar. Bach may have
made revisions to the original manuscript(s) in the intervening time, which is a giant topic in
itself. (Check out Zoltán Szabó’s PhD dissertation, and also the introduction to Andrew Talle’s
edition.)
The so-called Source H is a manuscript in Bach’s own hand of Suite No. 5…. in a later version
for the lute. It’s in G minor instead of C minor, and has some additional pitches in chords etc that
are idiomatic for the different instrument. Comparing this with the cello version is (to me,
anyway) as fascinating as reading an extremely thrilling detective novel. I highly recommend it.
When I’m working on Bach, I principally work from Source A (and Anner Bylsma’s book about it,
Bach the Fencing Master). This is not for the faint-hearted, but I think professional cellists
interested in historically-informed performance practice should at least try it.
Bärenreiter have several exceptional editions available. (Why so many editions from the same
publishing house? Find out here!) Hans Eppstein’s edition for the Neue-Bach Ausgabe has two
versions, one based on Sources A&B, the other on Sources C&D, which I find intriguing to
compare. A later edition by Bettina Schwemer and Douglas Woodfull-Harris offers us the
chance to make comparative readings of the Cello Suites based on the Sources. The newest,
by Andrew Talle, offers a second volume with a synoptic (side-by-side) comparison of all the
Sources (plus Source E, the first printed edition by Louis Norblin, 1824) as part of a second
volume…and while at 400 euros it sure ain’t cheap, it is literally the most fascinating thing I have
ever looked at and I look at it for literally hours every day because, well, right now it’s my job.
(Can’t afford Talle’s synoptic edition? There’s another, by David Starkweather, that you can
download.)
Other scholarly editions include the Henle edition by Egon Voss, and I also like the Breitkopf
edition by Kirsten Beisswenger. I often recommend Beisswenger’s edition to my college
students because it’s very reasonably priced.
Another fun thing to do is to go on IMSLP and look up some of the nineteenth-century editions
by the top players of the time. J. J. F. Dotzauer (he of the etudes that you love so much) made
one based on Source B, the Kellner copy, though scholars aren’t quite sure how he got his
hands on it. Hugo Becker and Julius Klengel, the top teachers of their day, both have editions.
And then there are the two editions by Friedrich Grützmacher…of which more later.
(8) Curiosities
I might as well subtitle this category “Slightly odd things Miranda thinks are cool.” So, speaking
of the much-maligned Grützmacher, he made two editions. One is the “conservative” one (scare
quotes because nothing Grützmacher did could be truly conservative). The other is a
“performance edition” that might better be termed an arrangement, because it’s …. a little wild.
In it, Grützmacher chops out large sections, changes notes, writes weird ornaments and
improvisations, and even changes the key of the Sixth Suite from D major to G major (which
actually isn’t a terrible idea for those who don’t own a five-string cello, but…). In case you can’t
tell, I kind of have a soft spot for Grützmacher, who has become an unfashionable figure these
days.
Other odd things that happened in the nineteenth century: several editors added piano
accompaniments, which seems strange these days, but was their way of making the music of
the past palatable to the audiences of their time. Check out Friedrich Wilhelm Stade’s and Carl
Georg Peter Grädener’s versions on IMSLP, and for super geeky fun, Robert Schumann’s
attempt at a piano part for the Third Suite. If you’re curious to know what the Schumann version
sounds like, check out this recording.
I also want to mention the very interesting edition by Dimitry Markevitch (another early adopter
of period instruments and HIPP), specifically the “alternative” version of the Fifth Suite in which
he combines material pulled from Sources A, B, and C with the additional notes and
ornamentation from Source H, Bach’s version for the lute. It’s highly idiosyncratic and not
always practical, but well worth a look.
As I mentioned above, the “edition” I use the most isn’t even really an edition, it’s more a
commentary on Source A by Anner Bylsma — the book Bach the Fencing Master. Though I
consider myself a “post-HIPPie” (i.e. I’ve learned about and assimilated historically informed
performance practice, but I’m not obsessed with it for its own sake and I draw inspiration from a
large number of varying playing styles), Bylsma’s playing has been a huge influence. I have
some quite reverential feelings about his book because few people have lived with and thought
about the Cello Suites more than he did. His central point is that we should at least take Anna
Magdalena Bach’s bowing markings seriously and not immediately discount them as haphazard.
Does he take this viewpoint to extremes? Well, maybe, but I think it’s still worth giving them a
chance.