JEAN-GUIHEN QUEYRAS Cello

Transcription

1 presents JEAN-GUIHEN QUEYRAS Cello Sunday, October 28, pm & 7pm Herbst Theatre J.S. BACH THE SUITES FOR UNACCOMPANIED CELLO AFTERNOON PROGRAM Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 Menuet 1 and 2 Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 Menuet 1 and 2 Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009 Bourrée 1 and 2 1 sfperformances.org

2 EVENING PROGRAM Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010 Bourrée 1 and 2 Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 Gavotte 1 and 2 INTERMISSION Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012 Gavotte 1 and 2 Jean-Guihen Queyras records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi Jean-Guihen Queyras is represented by Arts Management Group 130 W. 57th Street, Suite 6A, New York, NY artsmg.com

3 ARTIST PROFILE San Francisco Performances presents the San Francisco debut of Jean-Guihen Queyras. Curiosity, diversity and a firm focus on the music itself characterize the artistic work of Jean-Guihen Queyras. Whether on stage or on record, one experiences an artist dedicated completely and passionately to the music, whose humble and quite unpretentious treatment of the score reflects its clear, undistorted essence. The inner motivations of composer, performer and audience must all be in tune with one another in order to bring about an outstanding concert experience: Jean-Guihen Queyras learned this interpretative approach from Pierre Boulez, with whom he established a long artistic partnership. Queyras is a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and forms a celebrated trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov; the latter is a regular accompanist in addition to Alexandre Tharaud. He has also collaborated with zarb specialists Bijan and Keyvan Chemirani on a Mediterranean program. Queyras often appears with renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, working with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Philippe Herreweghe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jiři Bělohlávek, Oliver Knussen and Sir Roger Norrington. Queyras discography is impressive. His recordings of cello concertos by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Philippe Schoeller and Gilbert Amy have been released to critical acclaim. As part of a Harmonia Mundi project dedicated to Schumann, he has recorded the complete piano trios with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, and at the same time the Schumann cello concerto with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado. The recording of Schumann s Cello Concerto and Piano Trio No. 1 was released at the beginning of Highlights in the season include a North American tour, performances of Mitten wir im Leben sind with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and engagements with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Atlas Ensemble, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Queyras holds a professorship at the University of Music Freiburg and is Artistic Director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence festival in Forcalquier. He plays a 1696 instrument by Gioffredo Cappa, made available to him by the Mécénat Musical Société Générale. 3 sfperformances.org

4 PROGRAM NOTES The Suites for Unaccompanied Cello JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH ( ) Bach s six suites for unaccompanied cello date from about 1720, when the composer was Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, about 30 miles north of Leipzig. Bach did not play the cello, and it may well be that he wrote these suites for Christian Ferdinand Abel, cellist in the Cöthen orchestra and one of the best cellists in Europe. Abel and Bach became good friends (Bach was the godfather of one of Abel s sons), and almost certainly the two worked together as these suites were composed: Bach would have asked him what was possible and what was not, what worked and what didn t, and so on. The result is music for cello that is very idiomatically written but also supremely difficult, and all by itself this music may tell us how high the standard of music making was in the Cöthen court when Bach was there. Bach s suites for solo cello remained for years the property of a handful of connoisseurs they were not published until 1828, over a century after they were written. Bach understood the term suite to mean a collection of dance movements in the basic sequence of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, which is the same sequence of movements of his instrumental partitas. But Bach added an introductory prelude to all six cello suites, and into each suite he interpolated one extra dance movement just before the final gigue to make a total of six movements. All movements after the opening prelude are in binary form. Bach s cello suites have presented performers with a host of problems because none of Bach s original manuscripts survives. The only surviving copies were made by Bach s second wife and one of his students, and lacking even such basic performance markings as bowings and dynamics these texts present performers with innumerable problems of interpretation. In a postscript to his edition of these suites, Janos Starker notes that one of the pleasures of going to heaven will be that he will finally be able to discuss with Bach himself exactly how the composer wants this music played. In the meantime, individual performers must make their own artistic decisions, and these suites can sound quite different in the hands of different cellists. Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV1007 The noble Prelude of the First Suite rides along a steady pulse of sixteenth-notes, and it is the responsibility of the performer to breathe musical life manipulation of tempo, contrasts of dynamics within phrases, the gradual building to a great climax into these otherwise bare sequences of steady notes. Bach makes full use of the resonant sound of the cello s open G-string that underlies so much of this movement, and in a nice touch the movement s concluding line is effectively an inversion of its opening line. The moves along a similar sequence of steady sixteenths, though here the tempo feels slower and more 4 sfperformances.org

5 dignified; in this and the other binary movements, the performer has the option to take or ignore the repeat of the second section. The (French for running ) sails along somewhat harder-edged rhythms, while the dances with a grave dignity; Bach makes effective contrast here between the resonance of great chords and the steady flow of the melodic line. The interpolated movement in the First Suite is a pair of minuets. Their sprightly rhythms remind us that the minuet had its origins in a quick dance rather than the stately tempo we have come to associate with the court dance; the second minuet is the only section in the suite not in G Major Bach moves to D minor here, though even this continually edges back toward the home tonality. The concluding is an athletic and quite brief dance in 6/8 that flows smoothly to its brisk close. Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 The D-minor tonality gives the Second Suite a dark and somber spirit only in the second minuet does the music move briefly into the sunlight of D major. The stern opening Prelude is built on a steady pulse of sixteenth notes, while the dances gravely, its progress enlivened by dotted rhythms and turns. The moves along swiftly, while the noble makes its dignified way at a slower pace. After this, the two minuets offer some relief, with the sunny second dance serving as the trio section. A (derived from the Irish jig) usually swings along easily on a 12/8 meter, but here Bach sets it in a much shorter metric unit (3/8), and this dances sternly, with strong accents cutting into the rhythmic flow. Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV1009 The Third Suite is notable for its broad, heroic character, which comes in part from Bach s choice of key: C Major allows him to make ample use of the cello s C string, and the resonance of this lowest string echoes throughout the suite. The preludes of all the suites have an intentionally improvisatory quality: while the music is carefully written out, Bach wishes to create the effect that the performer is making it up on the spot. The Prelude of the Third Suite is built on a virtually nonstop sequence of sixteenth notes, though at the end a series of declamatory chords draws the music to its climax. The is an old dance of German origin, and that name survives today in square dancing terminology ( left with the old left hand ); in this movement Bach enlivens the basic pulse with turns, doublestops, and thirty-second notes. The races past, while the is dignified and extremely slow. The interpolated movement here is a pair of Bourrées, and listeners will discover that they may already know the first of them, for this graceful dance has been arranged for many other instruments; Bach presents an extended variation of it in the second Bourrée. The concluding dances quickly on its 3/8 meter; Bach offers the cellist some brisk passagework as well as extended doublestopping in this good-spirited dance. 5 sfperformances.org

6 Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010 The Fourth Suite in E-flat Major has long been regarded as one of the most difficult of the cycle, not just for its technical hurdles but also because the key of E-flat Major is awkward for stringed instruments. The opening proceeds sturdily on a steady flow of eighth notes that continues for nearly 50 measures; a quasi recitativo, full of sixteenth notes and chords, provides a brief interlude before the return of opening material, now varied rhythmically and harmonically. The gentle leads to a more energetic ; this movement is full of rhythmic variation, as Bach switches between progressions of eighths, sixteenths, and then triplets. The grave and graceful is the suite s slow movement, built on double stops and dotted rhythms; despite the slow tempo, the movement s roots in dance are clear. The two bourrées form one ABA movement. The opening Bourrée is athletic and long, while the second is quite brief, virtually a double-stopped transition passage in the cello s lower register before the return of the opening bourrée. The concluding is by far the most difficult for the cellist. It is in 12/8, giving the effect of flying triplets, and the movement becomes a non-stop tour de force. Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV1011 Many consider the Suite No. 5 in C minor one of the finest of the cycle: its somber minor tonality gives the music a dark, expressive quality, and Bach himself appears to have been taken with this music: several years after writing it, he arranged this suite for solo lute. An unusual feature of the cello version is that Bach asks the cellist to re-tune his instrument, bringing the A string (the top string) down one full step to G; this makes possible certain chord combinations impossible with normal tuning. The lengthy opening Prelude has been compared to French overture form, though the relation is distant: the Prelude does open with the dotted rhythms characteristic of the French overture and does introduce fugal-sounding material, but the opening section never returns. The slow (that title originally meant German dance ) retains the dotted rhythms of the opening movement, while the is in a quick 3/2 meter, full of multiple stopping. The grave is entirely linear there is no chording at all here and this ancient dance form (the sarabande was originally a sung dance) proceeds with great dignity. Two gavottes form the extra movement in this suite. The first is nimble and graceful and full of double-stopping, while the second is quick and built on flowing triplets; Bach asks for a da capo repeat of the first gavotte. The gigue may be of English origins, but the concluding of this suite seems far removed from its ancestor, the merry jig. Here the metric and phrase units are short (a quick 3/8), and the movement ends with the somber gravity that has marked the entire suite. Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012 The Sixth Suite is unique within the cycle because it appears to have been 6 sfperformances.org

7 conceived originally for an instrument other than cello. Bach s manuscript notates the part in soprano and alto clefs, and scholars have guessed that he may have written this suite for the now-obsolete viola pomposa or the violoncello piccolo: both these instruments had a fifth string an E a fifth above the cello s A string though the viola pomposa was played under the chin. For performance on the cello, the part has been transposed to the tenor and bass clefs; the range of the part, however, is still high in the cello s register. The Prelude of the Sixth Suite is set in 12/8, and the effect is of an energetic rush of triplets; near the end, however, Bach moves from the eighth-note pulse to sixteenth notes, and the music seems to rush ahead at twice its opening speed. The stately main idea of the is decorated with ornate swirls of 64thnotes as it proceeds, while the is brisk and propulsive it grows increasingly athletic and chromatic in its second half. The, in a broad 3/2 meter, is based on double-stopping, much of it high in the cello s range. The interpolated movements in this suite are a pair of gavottes. Vigorous and spirited, this music may be familiar because it has been arranged for other instruments; in the second strain of the second gavotte, Bach creates a dronelike effect on the cello s open D string as the melodic line dances above it. Not only is the concluding very fast, but much of it is built on doublestops, and Bach s final suite comes to its close in a great cascade of energy. Program notes by Eric Bromberger 7 sfperformances.org