Bach’s Solo String Music: One Collection for Three Instruments

—For Violinists Braving the c minor Fugue. For Cellists Bold Enough for the Chaccone.

Bach’s Original Titles

The names of musical compositions in the Baroque, as one could expect from such a decorative era, are more flowery than the modern titles we use. They often include a description that suggests an audience and a purpose. As Woody Allen noted in Stardust Memories, “For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg tried on their wedding night.” Bach himself never called the piece as such, but rather titled it,

Keyboard exercise, consisting of an Aria with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals. Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits.

Already we have details: connoisseurs as opposed to beginners, a specific instrument beyond just ‘keyboard,’ and the pleasant idea to refresh one’s spirits. We can agree that ‘Goldberg Variations’ is better for PR, but it conveys nothing compared to Bach’s title.

What some call the two- and three-part inventions, the more precise like to call the inventions and sinfonias. Bach called them neither. He titled the collection Aufrichtige Anleitung—which might be translated as Upright Method, or Honest Method—and added one of his most famous and descriptive titles:

Honest Method wherewith lovers of the clavier, especially those desirous of learning, are shown in a clear way not only 1) to learn to play two voices clearly, but also after further progress 2) to deal correctly and well with three obbligato parts, moreover at the same time to obtain not only good ideas, but also to carry them out well, but most of all to achieve a cantabile style of playing, and thereby to acquire a strong foretaste of composition.

What student could be lost when keeping such a title in mind? He almost sums up the point of learning music with this title!

No title, however, has been as misunderstood as the title page on his solo violin works, where, once understood fully, it reframes our conception of all his solo string music.

The Title Page of Sei Solo

In 1720, Bach completed what we now call the sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Again, Bach never called them this, but rather:

Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato Libro Primo

(Six Solo for Violin without Bass Accompaniment Book One)

Without bass accompaniment means without continuo, implying that perhaps without such an instruction, a keyboard or other instrument might provide harmonic or bass line accompaniment.

More important is the designation 'book one,’ which implies a 'book two' - the cello suites!

These works are better understood not as two separate books—one of violin solos and one of cello solos—but rather as one unified study of string playing, in two parts, called Six Solo. Perhaps the reason no modern editions print these convenient titles is that we lack Bach’s autograph to the cello suites where, on the title page, it is certain that Libro Secondo appeared¹. Such a designation actually does appear on Anna Magdalena’s title page, where she has neatly written:

Pars 1. Violino Solo senza Basso composée par Sr. Jean Seb. Bach

Pars 2. Violincello Solo senza Basso composée par Sr. J. S. Bach

Maitre de la Chapelle et Directeur de la Musique a Leipsic

ecrite par Madame Bachen. Son Epouse.

(Part 1. Violin Solo without Bass composed by Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach

Part 2. Violincello Solo without Bass composed by Mr. J. S. Bach

Kapellmeister and Director of Music in Leipzig

written by Madame Bach². His wife)

It’s very neat: We have Sei Solo Book One—violin works, what we now call the sonatas and partitas for violin—followed by Sei Solo Book Two—what we now call the cello suites³. The idea here is to note that the consummate baroque string player would have been able to play both books on not two, but three instruments (I return to the subject of instrumentation later). This is an important idea worth emphasizing today as a rift between the modern cellist and violinist prevents either from playing the other’s music. When have you heard a violinist tackling the c minor cello suite? Or a cellist playing the chaccone? Bach however wanted string players to play both sets of pieces, and indeed learning both books informs and improves one’s knowledge of either part.

The Intended Instrument for Libro Secondo

To the delight of every violist, modern scholarship suggests that the cello suites would be played on instrument held not between the legs, but on the shoulder (though still tuned to the range of the cello- one octave lower than the viola). Cellists too (like pianists), now face the interesting identity paradox of playing Bach on the 'wrong instrument.'

What is the ‘correct instrument’ to play Bach’s work for solo strings? The question inspires debate and controversy, partly because our ears have been trained by habit— we are unwilling, for instance, to let go of the sound of Yo-Yo Ma playing the G major prelude— but mostly because to Bach, there may have been more than one right answer. In the Baroque, the violin, like the clavier, referred to a family of instruments. If Bach did have one instrument in mind, it is likely the violoncello da spalla, which is played on the shoulder (spalla=shoulder). There is plenty of literature on the question⁴. The title pages of the earliest copies of the suites give different answers. Anna Magdalena’s copy (and other 18th century copies) says Violincello whereas Kellner’s says “Viola da Basso⁵.”

Leading figures in the so-called historic revival movement, such as Sigiswald Kuijken, play book one of Sei Solo on the violin and book two on the violincello(s) da spalla. The baroque string player, similarly versatile, likely did likewise.

Composing multiple volumes, each volume intended for a variety of instruments in a family, is not without precedent for Bach. His Clavier Übung—keyboard practice—is meant for clavichord, double manual harpsichord, and organ with pedals. Because baroque musicians would have been masters not of one, but of a class of related instruments, they would have been comfortable playing Sei Solo on different instruments, all the more so because Bach composed the work in a way that makes it possible for them to do so.

Philosophy in Sei Solo

Bach’s instrumental tomes are comprehensive explorations of an instrument’s capabilities. In Sei Solo, the exploration reaches beyond just one instrument, and in Libro Primo, the violin is pushed to reach even beyond itself.

The six solo works are pieces in g, b, a, d, C and E⁶. If we rearrange them into the circle of fifths, we have the four open strings of the violin, but we also have a fifth above the instrument (b) and a fifth below (C). The tonalities too, from first to last, move from the lowest string on the violin to the highest. Hence the key scheme suggests an image of the violin exploding outward⁷:

Themes of death and resurrection are implied in both books of Sei Solo. In Libro Primo, the first four pieces are in minor, concluding with the famous chaccone, which many have suggested was inspired by the death of his first wife.

The shift from minor to major occurs at the exact measure in Libro Primo that creates a so-called golden ratio between the two sections—1488⁸ measures in minor (the first four pieces), then 920 measures in major (the last two pieces). Whether Bach did this intuitively or through conscious mathematical calculation, the result seems miraculous.

Even without calculating bars, the musician working through the book is made to experience a kind of death and resurrection. By the end of the daunting chaccone, which ends on a doubled ‘D,’ the player is exhausted. This death is then followed by a gradual but ultimately joyous resurrection in C major. Violinist Michelle Ross likens the iambic rhythm beginning the C major sonata to the heartbeat reviving after death⁹. The piece begins in one voice, on one note: middle C. Then it multiplies into two voices, then three, then four—like the creation and evolution of the world. After this adagio, Bach gives us the gigantic C major fugue—the longest piece in the Sei Solo, and one of only seven pieces in Bach’s oeuvre with more than 350 bars. The death of the chaccone is balanced —even outshone— by the resurrection that is the C major fugue.

The four minor works and two major works of Libro Primo are balanced by four major works and two minor works in Libro Secondo, the cello suites. The first four suites are in standard tuning, but then in the fifth, Bach begins to ‘break’ the instrument by tuning the top string down from A to G—‘scordatura.’ With this downward movement and minor key, the piece has often been seen as passion music. Indeed Bach ‘shows’ us the broken body of Christ on the ‘broken’ instrument, writing crosses in the center of the suite:

Finally, in the end of Libro Secondo, not only does Bach ‘resurrect’ the lower string by tuning it back up to an A, he adds to the instrument another, higher string, and gives us… the risen cello! Eternal life!

The fifth and six suites comprise the most elaborate music in the second part of Sei Solo. The fifth is the French-style piece par excellence and a favorite of Bach’s (evidenced by his transcription of the piece, BWV 995). The sixth, with its unique, expansive adagio allemande and its new, larger range, represents a triumph over the previous suites: reaching from cello C, to the high G one space above the top line on the treble clef—a range nearly as large as that of even the keyboard works— a full fifth larger than anything else in the Sei Solo.

The ascent maintained across the two final suites is clear: c to D. From the opening series of leaping gestures in the sixth suite, to its broader range and major key —rising from the tomb of the minor-keyed fifth suite— to its use of an extra, higher string.

Conclusions

Sei Solo is a work of expansion. In Libro Primo, he expands the keys, making the violinist expand in turn. In Libro Secondo, he expands the instrument itself, twice: to four-string violincello, then to five-string violincello. If we, too, expand our horizon and play more than one book—on more than one instrument—our own capabilities as musicians will expand, as Bach so carefully intended¹⁰.

1. The Well-Tempered Clavier presents a similar conundrum. Bach’s autograph for what we call Book Two of that work do not survive. As Book Two is a more piecemeal collection than Book One, it is possible Bach did not title that collection The Well-Tempered Clavier. Schweitzer prefers 'Twenty-Four New Preludes and Fugues.' That title is indeed a more suitable description of the collection, which is much less unified than Book One (so-called) of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

2. This phrase (ecrite par Madame Bachen) is the cause of one of the greatest blunders in the history of Bach scholarship. An Australian uses it to validate his 'theory' that the cello suites were composed by Anna Magdalena. He mistranslates the word ecrite (written down) as composée (composed), and moreover fails to acknowledge that the “ecrite par Madamne Bachen” occurs on the bottom of the title page of both the violin and cello works.

3. I am aware that this conclusion disappoints Ruth Tatlow, whose numerically-driven theories point her toward the six sonatas for violin and harpsichord as the true ‘Book Two.’ Her work is commendable and intriguing. For a counterargument, I refer the reader to an article by Daniel Melamed entitled ‘Parallel Proportions’ in J.S. Bach’s Music. Published online by Cambridge University Press, Feb. 5, 2021.

4. See for example Douglas Woodfull-Harris and Bettina Schwemer’s lengthy introduction to the comparative edition of Bärenreiter’s publication of the suites.

5. Steven Isserlis dismisses Kellner by saying that he “can’t even stick to one language” on his title page, but it was commonplace in Bach’s time to freely switch between languages. Anna Magdalena’s copy switches between Italian and French.

6. N.B. Uppercase letters denote major keys, and lowercase letters denote minor keys in music.

7. This is not the only time Bach will arrange the order of a set of six pieces to suggest expansion. In his six partitas for keyboard (Clavier Übung 1) the order suggests upward movement: from B-flat to C, down to A, up to D, down to G, then further up to E. Volume two of the Clavier Übung picks up on the first volume’s key scheme, expanding further to F (Italian Concerto). See my forthcoming essay on Bach’s key schemes.

8. These numbers reflect the number of bars without repeats, without da capo movements, counting only the second of first and second endings.

9. She writes about this idea (and others) on her blog www.discoveringbach.com as well as her website www.michellerossviolin.com

10. I’d like to acknowledge Shep Barbash and Ethan Iverson for their help with this piece.