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In Reply to: RE: another 1065 in lateral form posted by Satie on May 07, 2015 at 00:10:06
Satie,
Many thanks for your informative reply. Nonetheless I beg to differ with you in respect to one important regard. I tend to believe these works were performed in patron's drawing rooms much more often than in church venues and such recordings are all WET, when they should be dry!
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It doesn't seem that these 'Cello Suites' were dedicated to anyone, nor written for the purpose of performance anywhere. How many different individuals had a hand in the surviving manuscripts seems to be unknown. They could merely been an intellectual enterprise, and now a suitable subject for several Ph.D. theses, (more likely than not, they have):
http://georgcello.com/bachcellosuites.htm
That said, there is recording available performed by one its scholars at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-Cello-Suites-Georg-Mertens/dp/B009RXMIKG/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_mus?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1431019920&sr=1-1&keywords=mertens+bach+cello+suites
Out of interest I will buy its CD release. The samples sound very nice as heard from my Tympanis. The snippets don't reveal any type of venue, almost sounding as an anechoic chamber, being *one* way I like it.
This entire matter could be in one's head. I have the recording of the Starker Bach Suites, etc. from one of the MLP boxes (Volume 1?), but would have preferred being able to read the booklet which came with the original CD release. I haven't been able to find it on the 'net. Oh well, needless to say there's many more recordings worthy of our time and consideration.
I have the CD booklet I can copy it for you if you want it
it includes the reference for the recording location (Ballroom studio A at the fine arts recording building) 1963
I like Starker's playing of the piece so I bear the defective sounding recording. I rarely care what the historically correct performance should be so long as the performance is emotionally convincing and hopefully well recorded. So I don't appreciate a romantic performer trying to do a stylistically PC baroque piece - I much prefer him to play it as it resonates with him. I look more for expression rather than interpretation.
One of my favorite shockers to play for people is Debussy playing some of his pieces transferred off an Edison roll. He plays in the heavy warm toned Brahms style on an obviously German piano. Not a sign of the light delicacy modern Debussy interpretations entail. He obviously thought himself a Romantic composer. Perhaps we should try out letting Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninoff specialists record Debussy.
Satie,
Thanks so very much for that information. Please don't go to the trouble of sending me a copy of the booklet.
"Ballroom studio A at the fine arts recording building) 1963" was the essential information I was hoping to see. Still Studio A in that Ballroom could have many differing qualities. Even somewhat like the Manhattan Center for Columbia, the Great Hall for the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonie for the BP. Different engineers make those halls sound quite differently, in many cases I wouldn't even expect that they were one and the same. e.g., take DG's Levine Mozart Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic, all in Der Grosser Saal, some sound very differently than do others.
Unfortunately for me when recordings have undesirable qualities they can get in the way of my appreciation of a composition or interpretation. I just can't enjoy listening past it. Upon continued re-listening to the MLP Starker/Bach Suites, I find the recording isn't really so 'poor', even though I would have preferred it being somewhat different, i.e., more like that provided for Yo Yo Ma by Sony.
If you look at the halls of palaces of Bach's sponsors throughout his career then you see that the ballroom studio is not uncharacteristic. What is wrong is that there are no people in the room and thus the overwhelming reverberation.
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