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William L. Hoffman wrote (October 28, 2019):
At the same time recently that scholars began exploring Bach's chamber music also came studies (monographs) focusing primarily on the unaccompanied solo works. The two solo string collections had come into their own, following the playing of individual movements as encores, in the 1890s when premier violinist Joseph Joachim began playing all six solo violin works from Bach's autograph while cellist Pablo Casals discovered a print edition and championed the six cello suites. While Bach in Cöthen was perfecting the art of fugal writing beginning with the Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), BWV 846-69, Book 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier) and dance settings with the English Suites, BWV 812-17 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Suites_(Bach)), which were first composed for Friedemann's pedagogical Clavierbüchlein in 1720, he also was compiling the first two collections of instrumental music, the solo string music for violin and cello: Six Partitas and Sonatas for Violin Solo, BWV 1001-1006 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatas_and_Partitas_for_Solo_Violin_(Bach)) and the Six Suites for Violoncello Solo, BWV 1007-1012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Suites_(Bach)).
Both collections "create the maximum effect with a minimum of 'instrumental tools'," says Christoph Wolff, as "Bach the quintessential instrumentalist raises and redefines the technical standards of performing by fully exploiting the idiomatic qualities of the violin and cello."1 The "free improvisatory and strict imitative realizations of his sonata-style movements and his suite (partita) dances with their rhythmic and textural flair reveal no deficiencies whatsoever when compared with the keyboard works from the same period." The string works "also epitomize virtuosity" and because of their singularity excel "to a degree ever greater than his keyboard works of comparable demands." These unique, unaccompanied works also reveal his compositional abilities to show "his command of dense counterpoint and refined harmony with distinctive and well-articulated rhythmic designs, especially in the dance movements."
"Bach's music for solo violin and solo cello is the ultimate manifestation of this "humanization' of an instrument," says Wilfrid Mellers (1914-2008, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Mellers).2 Mellers. Wilfrid. Part I, Prelude; Chapter 2, "Voice and Body, Bach's Cello Suites as an Apotheosis of the Dance." In Bach and the Dance of God. London: Faber, 1980: 17. Review, https://www.jstor.org/stable/736629?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents. Mellers brings theological, psychological, and philosophical perspective to Bach's music, beginning with the instrumental music (the cello suites and the WTC), then the St. John Passion and the B-Minor Mass, and the keyboard Goldberg Variations and Canonical Variations. By Bach's time, he notes, the viols were obsolete, replaced by the violin and its family "as the representative instruments of the Baroque era" that "sing lyrically, like human voices, but with a range and agility beyond human resource," with a tone from expressivity to brilliance, from secular to sacred venues and "well adapted for the execution of dance." "In his solo violin works, says Mellers (Ibid.: 18) Bach sometimes spells out the harmonies in multiple stopping, even to the extent of creating the illusion of a four-part organ fugue for solo fiddle." "The cello, even more than the violin, becomes a projection of a total human being, with the timbre of "a wide-ranging male voice," while physically requiring the whole body to play, sing, and dance with the cello. "In the cello suites, he is more austere, and in a sense more profound. He writes few quasi/fugato passages, and adheres strictly to the conventions of the dance suite of his age."
Bach's unaccompanied works for violin, cello, lute and flute "are part of the foundational repertory of their respective instruments," says David Ledbetter.* "At the same time, they are among the most complex and sophisticated manifestations of the union of french dance and Italian sonatas styles that characterises the music of the early eighteenth century." "The art of the suite and the sonata was to play on set forms in novel and inventive ways," he says (Ibid,: 1f), with the originality with which the music uses these prototypes" of suite and sonata, with a "richness of invention of musical ideas, of ingenuity of developing them." Further, "Bach worked within certain structural principles," achieving the effect, "strong and sonorous" with "the line firmly grounded in the standard harmonic progressions of late baroque music."
Ledbetter, David. Unaccompanied Bach: Performing the Solo Works. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009: vii; review, https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.unm.edu/docview/821019724/fulltextPDF/ABF091D0FFF14DF4PQ/1?accountid=14613. This scholarly study is an extensive examination of Bach's unaccompanied music for violin, cello, lute, and flute, with two introductory chapters on German traditions, style, and structure. The reviewer (Ibid.), Raymond Erickson, also has an article on Bach's Chaconne and its importance, https://www.americanbachsociety.org/Newsletters/Newsletter03Spr.pdf.
Bach's composition of unaccompanied string music, while "decidedly peripheral to the main developments in chamber music," says Richard D. P. Jones,3 achieves distinction most prominently in the six solo violin sonatas and partitas where the entire texture "is concentrated within the hands of a single player" "a degree of virtuosity comparable with that which he had long expected of the keyboard." These were abetted by his position as Concertmaster in Weimar, leading the court orchestra from 1714 to 1717, as well as his much earlier exposure to German virtuoso violin music of Johann Paul von Westhoff and Johann Georg Pisendel as well as Johann Heinrich Smelzer, Heinrich Ignaz vin Buber and Johann Jakob Walther. Their art of unaccompanied multi-stopping, pseudo-polyphonic writing, high positions, and brilliant passage work are infused in Bach's works c.1720. Meanwhile, Bach had also reveled in the established dance suite with its uniform dance styles and harmonies of Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-67, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Jakob_Froberger). Bach's sonatas show melodic invention in the opening preludes, strong concertante element in the weighty fugue movements, slow movements that "belong amongst Bach's most exquisite creations," and binary dance forms in the zest finales, observes Jones (Ibid.: 90).
The following are other annotated bibliographies of the solo violin and cello music, examining various manuscripts and copies:
Efrati, Richard R. Treatise on the Execution and Interpretation of the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and the Suites for Solo Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. Translated by Efrati, Richard with Harry Lyth. Zürich: Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, 1979. "Efrati is a proponent of using the lute transcription manuscript . . . as a means of reconciling the mistakes in the 5th Cello Suite from the Anna Magdalena copy . . . .," says Anna Wittstruck, "Dancing with J. S. Bach and a Cello" (Stanford: Stanford University, 2012 http://costanzabach.stanford.edu/history/baroque-dance).
Sackman, Dominik. Triumph des Geistes über die Materie. Mutmaßungen über Johann Sebastian Bachs 'Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato' (BWV 1001-1006) mit einem Seitenblick auf die '6 Suites a Violoncello Solo' (BWV 1007-1012). Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2008; see Tanja Kovačević review, Bach Bibliography, http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachbib/review/bb-review_JgIBGSchaffhausen2008.html. Szabó, Zoltán. "Remaining Silhouettes of Lost Bach Manuscripts? Re-evaluating J. P. Kellner’s Copy of J. S. Bach’s Solo String Compositions." In Understanding Bach, 10: 71–83 (Network UK 2015), https://bachnetwork.co.uk/ub10/ub10-szabo.pdf. This is a documented study of the two 1726 copies of the violin and cello suites by leading Bach student-copyist, Johann Peter Kellner with a section on his abridged version of the "Chaconne," and a section on "Parallel traits between the two Kellner copies." "Editions based directly on original sources" became Chapter 5 in Szabó's PhD thesis, Problematic Sources, Problematic Transmission: An Outline of the Edition History of the Solo Cello Suites by J. S. Bach.
A special study is David Beach's examination of the dance movements in Bach's solo works for violin, cello, keyboard and orchestra:
Beach, David W. Aspects of Unity of J. S. Bach's Partitas and Suites: An Analytical Study, Eastman Studies in Music. Rochester NY: 2005; description, https://boydellandbrewer.com/aspects-of-unity-in-j-s-bach-s-partitas-and-suites-hb.html. Beach examines many of the 44 works for dance in the suites and multi-movement partitas for solo instrument, keyboard, and orchestra, showing that the well-known individual movements often were part of a greater fabric of various forms of inner unity, not just a potpourri of dances.
Studies of the violin solo works involve performance monographs and theological symbolism. Theological meaning is an area of study in which a select group of writers began to explore this concept in the wordless instrumental music, most notably in the solo violin and cello works and the Brandenburg Concertos:4
Lester, Joel. Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, Performance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; description, https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195120974.001.0001/acprof-9780195120974. This violin study focuses on the first Sonata in G minor, BWV 1001, the four movements in four chapters and their implications for the other two sonatas and other Bach violin works, as well as a chapter on the three solo violin partitas.
Schröder, Jaap. Bach's Solo Violin Works: A Performer's Guide. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2007; description, https://unm-on-worldcat-org.libproxy.unm.edu/search?databaseList=173%2C2328%2C2007%2C1533%2C2006%2C1697%2C3413%2C2268%2C2201%2C2267%2C1672%2C3036%2C638%2C2264%2C2263%2C2262%2C1271%2C2261%2C2260%2C2281%2C143%2C2237%2C2259%2C1487%2C203%2C3201%2C1708&queryString=kw%3A+Schroder+Bach+violin&clusterResults=true#/oclc/74966643. The title speaks for itself. Schröder also has recordings of BWV 1003, 1004 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqIoVJaX780, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRahsFz1lR0.
Shute, Benjamin. Sei Solo: Symbolium? The Theology of J. S. Bach's Solo Violin Works (Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016); review, http://earlymusicreview.com/ben-shute-sei-solo-symbolum/. This is a study of the theological-allegorical designs of the six violin solo works, with special attention to the second Partita in D-minor, BWV 1004, with its extended, renown "Chaconne." Paul Galbraith's guitar transcriptions of the solo violin works has his own speculation that "a thematic thread runs through the work," "a gospel story in triptych form, telling of the birth [Sonata No. 1), Passion [Sonata No. 2), and Resurrection of Christ" (Sonata No. 3), https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NonVocal/Solo-Guitar-Galbraith-Kirk.htm.
FOOTNOTES
1 Christoph Wolff, Bach: The Learned Musician, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014: 232).
2 Mellers. Wilfrid. Part I, Prelude; Chapter 2, "Voice and Body, Bach's Cello Suites as an Apotheosis of the Dance." In Bach and the Dance of God. London: Faber, 1980: 17. Review, https://www.jstor.org/stable/736629?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents. Mellers brings theological, psychological, and philosophical perspective to Bach's music, beginning with the instrumental music (the cello suites and the WTC), then the St. John Passion and the B-Minor Mass, and the keyboard Goldberg Variations and Canonical Variations.
3 Richard D. P. Jones, "Violin, cello, and flute solos," in The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Music to Delight the Spirit, Vol. II: 1717-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 86).
4 See also studies of Bach's church music in Jaroslav Palikan, Bach Among the Theologians (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986; review, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1289852096/fulltextPDF/4C44CE927A2A4D5BPQ/1?accountid=14613); Calvin R. Stapfert, Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmanns Publishing; review, http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachbib/review/bb-review_Stapert-MOC.html); Michael Marissen, Bach & God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016; review https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/B0215.htm. Instrumental music, Michael Marissen, The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); summary, https://web-b-ebscohost-com.libproxy.unm.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4898f685-df91-47aa-9804-a0d6dc56ca40%40pdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=349975&db=nlebk); interview, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/arts/music/bach-brandenburg-concertos.html).The first English language study of Bach and theology is Leo Schrade, "Bach: The Conflict Between the Sacred and Secular," in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1946): 151-194 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2707070.pdf?casa_token=yHEZkWrcuecAAAAA:OD3EI2M_z4N2RRvCdZneeQ7aVD2FhK0zwW9mvy5ciHmiuAU3z7qHB6F7Kz-bTD5zsLeiAkN79CyKyv30HrdGrn2R-ukDqAo7BSPPmVc5dFgBsWGg97jQ); summary, https://jams.ucpress.edu/content/ucpbams/4/11.1).
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To come: The six solo cello suites: varied perspectives.
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