I love this so much, as someone who tends to listen to a single piece of music on repeat (especially while coding) and has spent a lot of time with Yo-Yo Ma's "Six Evolutions".
Loved learning about the deep diversity of recordings from other artists, the ambiguous history of the music, and that there's a question if the music was even originally written for a cello!
Also loved that the site recommends different recordings based on the mood of interpretation.
This all reminds me of the HN favorite, "Reality has a lot of detail." Feel like I just discovered fractal complexity in a piece of music I naively thought I knew well.
Different renderings of classical pieces can be night-and-day difference. There are some pieces that have been worn grey from over exposure and then you hear that one special version and it's like it is a completely new piece all over again.
Now just imagine you lived during the romantic period of music where the virtuoso's highly personal interpretation of the piece was not only encouraged - it was downright expected.
Even today where the printed note is considered sacrosanct - you'll still find that artists are able to inject quite a bit of their own personality into a piece.
Great example is the Well-Tempered Clavier as performed by Glenn Gould versus Sviatoslav Richter.
I can highly recommend the William Skeen recordings of the Cello Suites, recorded and released by one of the best classical labels: Reference Recordings. You get the historically informed sound and the absolute best sound quality in one package.
Oh, it's...very new! Thanks for the recommendation.
Another recommendation: the recordings by the multigenre saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu. It's insane. I won't give anything away, but in particular set aside some time to listen to the Menuets & Gigue from the first suite without any distractions.
I'm a cellist, played all the suites and always start with them when I return to the instrument after a hiatus. They've been analyzed to death, so my goal when playing is to avoid over-intellectualizing ("learn the changes, then forget them") and just try to take a different emotional journey each time (no way to say that without it sounding sappy), physically leading with my breath.
I get sometimes a bit annoyed by hacker news. And then I get a reply from a cellist. Thank you for playing and making this world a bit better place, you made my day.
The Bach Cello Suites are deservedly famous, but if you are looking to branch out to other solo cello music I recommend listening to Zoltan Kodály's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello. After the Bach Cello Suites it is probably the most important piece in the solo cello repertoire. One of the unusual features of the piece is that it calls for the bottom two strings to be tuned down half a step which gives the cello a darker timbre.
When tuning down those two strings, would the player need to "relearn" the positions of fingers on the strings when playing? Or would they play at the same positions and ignore the conflict in expected and actual sound?
I asked Claude Code who the greatest composer of all time was (mostly on a lark) expecting something very non-committal that weighed the accomplishments of the various great composers. Instead, I got back a one word answer: Bach.
FYI, We just had world-class cellist Steuart Pincombe here in Austin last month performing the last three Bach cello concertos along with three matched brews from the excellent local Lazarus brewery as part of his occcasional "Bach and Beer" performances.
He's a flat amazing cellist, and watching him perform that last concerto you really realize how hard he's working to get it done - it's a workout. Anyway, it was a really good evening. (FWIW, this was part of the Arts On Alexander program this year, which is one of Austin's lesser known gems of amazing live classical music performaces.
My understanding is that for centuries after Bach's death, they were disregarded. They were seen almost as etudes, for cellists to use for practice to hone their technique. They didn't really gain their current status as respectable concert pieces until Pablo Casals dug them up in the early 20th century and produced his classic recordings.
As were the Partitas and Sonatas for unaccompanied violin. It wasn’t until the great 19th century violinist Joachim began playing them in recitals that they came to light again. Even then it was not widely accepted. I believe it may have been George Bernard Shaw who had pretty harsh words to say about the very idea of treating these works seriously. My daughter is preparing for her conservatory auditions; and these works are now compulsory literally everywhere!
I play viola, and usually it's only the cello suites that are played on viola. But I fell in love with the sonatas and partitas. They're just incredible. The only one that I ever learned fully and performed was the second partita. Of course, on viola you have to play them down a 5th but they still work beautifully and sound great.
I love this so much, as someone who tends to listen to a single piece of music on repeat (especially while coding) and has spent a lot of time with Yo-Yo Ma's "Six Evolutions".
Loved learning about the deep diversity of recordings from other artists, the ambiguous history of the music, and that there's a question if the music was even originally written for a cello!
Also loved that the site recommends different recordings based on the mood of interpretation.
This all reminds me of the HN favorite, "Reality has a lot of detail." Feel like I just discovered fractal complexity in a piece of music I naively thought I knew well.
Different renderings of classical pieces can be night-and-day difference. There are some pieces that have been worn grey from over exposure and then you hear that one special version and it's like it is a completely new piece all over again.
Now just imagine you lived during the romantic period of music where the virtuoso's highly personal interpretation of the piece was not only encouraged - it was downright expected.
Even today where the printed note is considered sacrosanct - you'll still find that artists are able to inject quite a bit of their own personality into a piece.
Great example is the Well-Tempered Clavier as performed by Glenn Gould versus Sviatoslav Richter.
https://xkcd.com/915/
XKCD is just a high brow version of the reaction gif. But it carries just as much value.
Nope. Really does not apply here.
As someone who grew up bathed in baroque orchestral and medieval choral music, I can imagine that to the outside this applies.
after all a genre that you're not familiar with tends to sound the same.
The most recent episode of the excellent classical music podcast "Sticky Notes" is comparing several recordings of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony: https://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com/100-years-of-beethoven...
In the 1990s Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with artists in different fields to try to "translate" them to different forms of art:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspired_by_Bach
If you're in Toronto, Canada, you can visit the park that was inspired by No. 1:
* https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/parks-recreation/places...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Music_Garden
I can highly recommend the William Skeen recordings of the Cello Suites, recorded and released by one of the best classical labels: Reference Recordings. You get the historically informed sound and the absolute best sound quality in one package.
https://referencerecordings.com/recording/the-six-cello-suit...
Oh, it's...very new! Thanks for the recommendation.
Another recommendation: the recordings by the multigenre saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu. It's insane. I won't give anything away, but in particular set aside some time to listen to the Menuets & Gigue from the first suite without any distractions.
https://yasuaki-shimizu.com/music/cello-suites-2/
I'm a cellist, played all the suites and always start with them when I return to the instrument after a hiatus. They've been analyzed to death, so my goal when playing is to avoid over-intellectualizing ("learn the changes, then forget them") and just try to take a different emotional journey each time (no way to say that without it sounding sappy), physically leading with my breath.
I get sometimes a bit annoyed by hacker news. And then I get a reply from a cellist. Thank you for playing and making this world a bit better place, you made my day.
The Bach Cello Suites are deservedly famous, but if you are looking to branch out to other solo cello music I recommend listening to Zoltan Kodály's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello. After the Bach Cello Suites it is probably the most important piece in the solo cello repertoire. One of the unusual features of the piece is that it calls for the bottom two strings to be tuned down half a step which gives the cello a darker timbre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phygv_Et9sQ
When tuning down those two strings, would the player need to "relearn" the positions of fingers on the strings when playing? Or would they play at the same positions and ignore the conflict in expected and actual sound?
What a great resource! Took me a minute to find their actual recommendations without having to read each review, which is here: https://bachcellosuites.co.uk/bach-cello-suites-home/favouri...
I asked Claude Code who the greatest composer of all time was (mostly on a lark) expecting something very non-committal that weighed the accomplishments of the various great composers. Instead, I got back a one word answer: Bach.
regular claude is not so concise, or decisive
I wish Spotify would allow me to easily compare the same classical pieces with different recordings!
FYI, We just had world-class cellist Steuart Pincombe here in Austin last month performing the last three Bach cello concertos along with three matched brews from the excellent local Lazarus brewery as part of his occcasional "Bach and Beer" performances.
He's a flat amazing cellist, and watching him perform that last concerto you really realize how hard he's working to get it done - it's a workout. Anyway, it was a really good evening. (FWIW, this was part of the Arts On Alexander program this year, which is one of Austin's lesser known gems of amazing live classical music performaces.
Beautiful pieces.
My understanding is that for centuries after Bach's death, they were disregarded. They were seen almost as etudes, for cellists to use for practice to hone their technique. They didn't really gain their current status as respectable concert pieces until Pablo Casals dug them up in the early 20th century and produced his classic recordings.
> they were disregarded.
As were the Partitas and Sonatas for unaccompanied violin. It wasn’t until the great 19th century violinist Joachim began playing them in recitals that they came to light again. Even then it was not widely accepted. I believe it may have been George Bernard Shaw who had pretty harsh words to say about the very idea of treating these works seriously. My daughter is preparing for her conservatory auditions; and these works are now compulsory literally everywhere!
I play viola, and usually it's only the cello suites that are played on viola. But I fell in love with the sonatas and partitas. They're just incredible. The only one that I ever learned fully and performed was the second partita. Of course, on viola you have to play them down a 5th but they still work beautifully and sound great.
The Netherlands Bach Society [1] has an ongoing project of recording all of Bach's works and making them available for free.
They also have a YouTube channel [2]
[1] https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allofbach
[2] https://m.youtube.com/bach