Sollima - Bach Cello Suites
For the new year, I wanted to highlight a recently released version of Bach's cello suites.
Performances
I’ve found some of Giovanni Sollima’s albums interesting, especially those focused on baroque repertoire. This past November Brilliant Classics released his recording of Bach’s Cello Suites. The recording was made in 2021; included in the recording are some bonus tracks, pieces we might say were inspired by the suites. All in all, he provides us three hours of music. The sixth suite, as seems more and more typical today, is played on a 5-string instrument.
The liner notes paint the artist’s relationship with this music and his attempt to go back to the original source to inspire this recording, made during downtime over the pandemic. As we might expect from Sollima, his interpretations are sometimes delivered with gusto and a personality that I find satisfying. I can already say with authority that some may find these performances polarizing, for some, they may not like the approach at all.
I welcome them in all their eccentricity. A good place to start may be the 5th suite in C minor BWV 1011, in the way he phrases the Courante. He’s less concerned about timing than he is articulating the phrases. I find this clever, his approach really resonates with me. In so doing he finds little pockets to bring new light to the piece. The Sarabande’s feel is almost different; while I do think there is a similar approach, insofar that he is again presenting the phrases together, there is a plain simplicity in the way he performs this movement. In some ways this approach robs from the piece its peculiar melodic surprises. Near the end he retreats in his sound, which sets him up for the nearly muted approach that he returns to in the second Gavotte. His introduction of swing into the first Gavotte is interesting, no? I’m also a huge fan of the way he plays his double stops, the approach comes off to me as natural. It’s this inventiveness in interpretation that for me I wish more musicians felt the calling to introduce into their playing.
The natural place many may start a new recording of the six suites is the opening Prelude from the first suite. There is a typical evenness to his playing, which he seems content to lose by the midpoint of the track. As I’ve already mentioned, he’s focused on the phrases and I mean those smaller phrase groups that are contribute to the music’s rhetorical context. This isn’t the same Prelude you might hear during a massage session, one with such regular evenness that it helps you put cares out of mind. Instead, it grabs your attention!
As I may have mentioned, I have a preference for the second suite, BWV 1008. (That happens when you take to playing it and learn it!) All I’ll say is that I always fought my teacher in how to perform the first movement; he was a fan of ensuring everything was even and every beat got the same weight and distribution of the bar. Sollima more or less plays it as I’d heard it, as less of a continual melody and instead as gestures. (For a trombonist, it also made it easier to take breaths!) His little flourish three-quarters through? Nice. Then he drives that piece home. I might have ended it with more energy and fire, but his approach is probably more musically satisfying.
The Allemande is clever. His entrance into the repeat is nice, giving us a little more than the first trip did. I’d guess at this point he was no longer reading the music; instead he was playing with his ears. Some of the filigree he introduces into the B section is thrilling. So heart, ears, and but also a good dose of excellent technique.
The Courante? Again, his phrasing is what makes this ultimately interesting, not to mention those modifications he introduces into the repeats that just feel so good. I mean, they’d feel good if you were playing, don’t you think? Can’t blame him for giving us that energy. It may not be in the score, per se, but how is that not part of the music?
The dance I’m most familiar with is the second suite’s Sarabande. He’s introduced some gestures into this one that I wouldn’t have done myself. Not that I don’t like them, I’m simply not that good! It’s something I think you’ll find throughout this recording, his desire to get us to hear this music in a new way. The solutions I think are interesting. They align, for me, with good taste.
He introduces the Menuets strangely, giving us a little bass line introduction. He nearly goes off the rails in a few places, for one, arresting my apt attention. While all the notes may not be Bach’s, I’d wager that the style is something Mr. Bach might find attractive. Such conjectures have no real merit, I recognize, but all around, the treatment of these dances are different enough to keep them so interesting, including his additional coda at the end.
For me the fandom breaks down a bit in the Gigue. I’d still like to hear more evenness throughout in this one. The energy he does project in parts is nevertheless still welcome. Listen to the way he ends the phrase of the repeat. Up and down and back up. Yes!
The Gigue in the fourth suite does capture that non-relenting energy that we typically experience in performances of gigues. He pushes the tempo really hard but succeeds in making this pretty exciting.
The entire sixth suite is a different animal for me. In some ways it seems like an outlier; however Bach does the same thing in this sixth sonata for violin and harpsichord by changing things up. Here it isn’t the formal structure of the suite, but writing the way he does in the Prelude. It’s a very technical enterprise that I think Sollima handles well, at a really aggressive tempo. The close miking reveals just how busy the fingers get in this one. The tone most definitely is palpable in this suite as he has changed instruments.
The Allemande in the sixth suite is a difficult one. I think it contains some profoundly moving music, but I find I struggle with some interpretations of this one. Sollima isn’t in a hurry, taking relish when he lands on the double stops. Props for how he highlights the notes that are realized on different strings simultaneously; he does the same thing in the second suite’s Sarabande. His use of vibrato as an ornamental effect is nicely rendered.
The rhythmic intensity is wild in the Courante. It’s a virtuosic display with his ability to render the entire dance at that tempo. What excitement! I was biting my nails with those upward runs.
The pair of Gavottes from the sixth suite I have also written before about, and how this piece really resonated with me. I’ve found it under the fingers and bow of other cellists to be something profoundly sad despite its positive nature and major mode. It has something to do with the range of the instrument and its fragility at that portion of the instrument’s gamut. Sollima plays the second one very differently, nearly rushing through it. It recalls some of the difficulty of the opening Prelude. The hurdy-gurdy effect is intensified. More fodder to suggest that’s what Bach was going for? All in all, this may be his wildest departure from what we’re used to. In the Gigue his eccentricities limit his instrument’s diction a bit. The effect is less clean. But it does speak to his aesthetic of playing some of these dances with a little grit and flare.
Horizons by Steve Hackett is a riff from the opening G major Prelude. It’s a piece new to me and enjoyed it as encore material. The Partita di Gavote sopra un Basso for lute and cello is a wild ride, departing from its historical roots for me. Exciting music.
Even more out there is Sollima’s own composition, Jook-Urr-Pa, written in 2019. It starts with rapping against the instrument with foot-stomping. By the time the strings are activated with the bow, the connection to the opening Prelude of the sixth suite should be apparent. More sound effects are part of the Allemanda by Umberto Pedraglio. It’s a composition from 2020 for “hay cello.” A picture of this instrument is included in the booklet, but what it is exactly is beyond my comprehension. I am not sure we needed that piece.
Also included are two arrangements of individual dances combined with piano; one is by Robert Schumann and the other by Alfredo Piatti. More interesting to me is the symphonic rendering of the sixth suite, performed with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria. It’s an arrangement made by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in 1940. It places the cello in the solo role with additional enhancements from the orchestral forces.
Finally, Sollima records Luigi Forino’s Prayer on the Prelude of the Fourth Suite with cellists Massimo Polidori, Ludovica Rana, and Tommaso Tesini. The piece is an interesting one in that it keeps Bach’s music at the center of things by building a structure around it. I am not sure when this was written, but Forino’s dates are 1868-1936.
Sound
It’s easy to get into the texture and sound of Sollima’s instrument(s). There were a few times I felt that sound was off, speaking to the way the the lowest string of his cello seemed to fall on the left channel while the rest of the instrument was right-balanced. My assumption is that a stereo-pair of mikes were pretty close to the instrument.
That said, while the general levels of the recording aren’t that hot, I found the need to turn things up and got a good taste of his instrument, including some of the intense fingerwork and breathing. Maybe not the most ideal situation, but in general, it made it easy to appreciate the details.
Final Thoughts
I often return to Pieter Wispelwey’s third recording of the Bach cello suites as a favorite. Like Wispelwey, Sollima can have a hard bow hand. But it’s not consistently that way, which I like. While I think having a “straighter” approach to these suites is a great idea, with so many great performances already on record, I was ready for this one. Maybe not a reference? But one that pushes boundaries with good artistic taste and a daring spirit. And I am not sure I could ID a recording that did this, plus gives us a window into the impact these suites have had on other composers. All around, a monumental recording.
This is exactly the type of recording that deserves my highest rating. All I’d ask is that you keep an open mind and let Sollima’s artistry tickle your soul. This is one of those recordings that can put quite a few smiles upon your face, especially when you’re not expecting it!
