Enjoy, Stream & Download this Matt Haimovitz - Bach Cello Suites Podcast. Below is Press Release
Fifteen years after his pivotal first recording of the Cello Suites by J.S. Bach, which launched the newborn Oxingale Records, Matt Haimovitz returns with a profoundly transformed interpretation inspired and informed by an authoritative manuscript copy by Anna Magdalena, Bach's second wife. In this second foray into the period-instrument sphere – following his revelatory recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas and Variations with Christopher O'Riley – Haimovitz performs the Suites on baroque cello as well as cello piccolo, the five-string instrument for which Suite VI was likely intended. While on the surface, Anna Magdalena's version provides seemingly little guidance, the manuscript ultimately reveals interpretive insights and an idiomatic grammar to articulation and phrasing. The manuscript becomes a holy testament for Haimovitz in his new document of the Cello Suites.
From Haimovitz's liner notes: The original manuscript of J.S. Bach's 6 Suites for Cello Solo has been lost to history. Our only apostles are Johann Peter Kellner, an acquaintance of Bach, and Anna Magdalena, Bach's second wife. Hers is a faithful copy of the original... more and more I turned to Anna Magdalena's manuscript as particularly valuable, becoming increasingly convinced that hers is closest in spirit to the original. With humility, and no small dose of courage, I continue on my journey with Bach and The Cello Suites, studying the gospel according to Anna Magdalena.
SIX NEW COMMISSIONS: Overtures to Bach - Celebrating his evolving perspective on Bach, Haimovitz builds a bridge to our time with Overtures to Bach, a series of six new commissions, each one introducing one of the six Cello Suites. Haimovitz has commissioned a new Overture from composers Philip Glass, Du Yun, Vijay Iyer, Roberto Sierra, Mohammed Fairouz, and Luna Pearl Woolf.
The six new Overtures to Bach aim to both anticipate and reflect each of the Suites, expanding on the multitude of spiritual, multicultural, and vernacular references found in the Bach. Philip Glass seamlessly connects to the first suite, while Du Yun's The Veronica quotes Serbian chant and Christian imagery for the second. Vijay Iyer's Run responds to Bach's third suite with a virtuosic display celebrating the resonance of the instrument and the composer's jazz roots. Then, for the fourth suite,Roberto Sierra's La Memoria morphs Bach's motives into Latin forms and rhythms. Inspiration comes even further afield from Mohammed Fairouz, whose Gabriel finds a Sufi melody to anticipate the fifth suite, and from Luna Pearl Woolf, who responds to the sixth suite and the cello piccolo with Lili'uokalani, a work inspired by pre-Western Hawaiian chant. The six Overtures to Bach will be recorded for release on the PENTATONE Oxingale Series in spring 2016.
