Bach’s 4 orchestral suites: EMS 29 January

[MickyD]

Interesting thread. As I said earlier on, I very much liked the Sonnerie CD of the suites with reduced forces - very convincing.

Thanks for the Graupner link, Richard, I don't know those at all, so will be eager to give them a try.

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks for the Graupner link, Richard, I don't know those at all, so will be eager to give them a try.

I think you'll like it a lot. I've given copies of that CD as presents to a few friends since discovering it.

[doversoul1]

Usual meaning is to denote that something is considered a poor relation.

Ah. Thank you!

If 'orchestral' is not accurate, what would be the suitable name for these suites?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You mean the resources he wrote his music for? Yes indeed - I can't think of any composer at any time in history who has had unlimited resources to work with.

Composers live in the present, but it would be wrong to suppose they are always happy with their resources

Playing Bach's B minor Suite with a string orchestra makes no more sense than doing the same with a Haydn string quartet.

If it sounds good/better, that's a good reason.

[vinteuil]

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,,, we all know Alpie thinks Bach's solo violin partitas work much better when played in a Stokowski re- versioning by the full forces of the Hallé with loads of welly and vibrato on every note...

[vinteuil]

Ah. Thank you!

If 'orchestral' is not accurate, what would be the suitable name for these suites?

... 'chamber' ?

[Richard Barrett]

Composers live in the present, but it would be wrong to suppose they are always happy with their resources.

It would also be wrong to suppose one knows what they would have been happy with!

Returning to my comparison with Haydn string quartets, the difference is that these have an unbroken performance history since the time they were written, whereas Bach's music for vocal/instrumental ensembles hasn't ; when it was "rediscovered" in the early 19th century, tastes had changed, public concerts were much more widespread and ensembles had become in general much larger. So to people with 19th century tastes it certainly sounded "better" to play Bach with much larger forces than the music was written for; but Bach's own tastes would have been entirely different. There's no evidence at all that Bach "would have preferred" what became of his music a hundred and more years after his death.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And Mendelssohn initially planned that his first performance of the StMP would be done with smaller forces, comparable with (although still larger than) those for Bach's own performances - the only reason it eventually was performed with huge forces was because so many people wanted to be involved.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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,,, we all know Alpie thinks Bach's solo violin partitas work much better when played in a Stokowski re- versioning by the full forces of the Hallé with loads of welly and vibrato on every note...

... and your point is..?

[doversoul1]

[...] Basically, they are suites of dance-pieces in French Baroque style preceded by an ouverture. This genre was extremely popular in Germany during Bach's day, and he showed far less interest in it than was usual. Telemann left us with 135 examples, Graupner 85 and Fasch a neat 100, so why did such a prolific and accomplished composer as Bach shun the genre? [...]


E-A asks (#4)

Who writes this headline guff? The same person who writes the infantile thread-starters on Radio 3's Facebook page, perhaps?

Our dependable friend Wiki
[…] More broadly, the term was used in Baroque Germany for a suite of dance-pieces in French Baroque style preceded by such an ouverture. This genre was extremely popular in Germany during Bach's day, and he showed far less interest in it than was usual: Robin Stowell writes that "Telemann's 135 surviving examples [represent] only a fraction of those he is known to have written";[1] Christoph Graupner left 85; and Johann Friedrich Fasch left almost 100. […]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestral_suites_(Bach)

Shouldn’t Radio3 refer to the source….?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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,,, we all know Alpie thinks Bach's solo violin partitas work much better when played in a Stokowski re- versioning by the full forces of the Hallé with loads of welly and vibrato on every note...

I'm seriously considering working on this. It has real potential.

[Quarky]

I find it odd that these pieces by JS Bach are still routinely referred to as "orchestral" when they're really nothing of the kind - no.2 for example requires no more than six players (flute, two violins, viola and a basso continuo using cello and harpsichord). I don't believe there's any evidence that Bach performed them with more than one or two players to a part... although the title is given as "Orchestral Suites" even on the cover of Sigiswald Kuijken's recent historically scrupulous set.

They weren't intended as a set in the same way as the Brandenburg Concertos of course, which is why there are only four. Maybe Bach wrote more when he was Kapellmeister in Köthen. There's also BWV 1070 in G minor which found its way into the BWV despite clearly not being by JS Bach (it's probably by Wilhelm Friedemann).

There are very many fine pieces in this form from German composers of the first half of the 18th century. Zelenka's complete "orchestral" music amounts to three CDs' worth so that's relatively easy to explore. I've recently been enjoying a CD of such works by Fasch, directed by Ludger Remy on the CPO label. But my top recommendation in this area from the last few years is the second of three CDs of instrumental music by Christoph Graupner directed by Siegbert Rampe on Dabringhaus & Grimm. You can hear the entire disc here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yeokjn86G4M

Many thanks for the link. That, in contrast to EMS, "informed, educated and entertained". At least there were some real Orchestral Suites in the following Early Music Late.