The Cello Music Collections at the Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, contain 38 different editions of the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, by Johann Sebastian Bach. There are 26 of these in the Luigi Silva Collection alone. The total number of complete copies of the Six Suites is 54. In addition, there are three incomplete copies, three transcriptions with piano accompaniment, and one arrangement of Suite Six with string orchestra accompaniment.
Many of these suites in each collection have performance notes by the representative cellists, including bowings and fingerings. Because Bach's autograph manuscript is lost, cellists usually rely on three early manuscripts, all located in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, formerly the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz:
1. Anna Magdalena Bach (1730), 2. Johann Peter Kellner, organist and cantor at Gafenröde (1726?), and 3. Wolfgang (Johann Jacob Heinrich?) †Westphal, organist at Hamburg and a student of Bach's. Contrary to the theory that Bach purposely omitted any indications of bowing in order to give the performer optimum flexibility, both the Kellner and Westphal editions have precise bow- markings as well as some tempo indications, dynamics and ornaments. It is thought that Westphal obtained his copy from C.P.E. Bach and that it is probably the work of one of C.P.E.'s copyists. By contrast, Anna Magdalena's manuscript has many errors and very few bowings, ornaments, tempi, or dynamics. Facsimiles of these three manuscripts are held in the oversize section of the Silva Collection. In addition, this collection contains a manuscript in Silva's hand, which is a preliminary draft of a projected edition, incorporating these three early editions on parallel staves with Silva's own edition. Unfortunately this was never published and is incomplete, lacking the Sixth Suite.
In spite of the research done by Silva and others, much controversy still abounds over the ultimate source of J.S. Bach's bowings. The archival section of the Silva Collection contains several copies of an unpublished typescript, one copy entitled: Old Music and Old Old Instruments - Some ideas about Bach's own bowings in the Violoncello Solo Suites, by Luigi Silva. In this document Silva advances the theory that Bach intended to be as precise as possible on musical articulation, which Silva defines as the patterns within the phrase, but to allow flexibility in tempi and dynamics. Silva refutes the theory that few bowings were indicated in Bach's original manuscripts of the cello suites and that those that exist are awkward. In fact, he says, they contain more slurs than his violin works of the same period. He discusses in detail the reasons that these bowings seem awkward, believing that this is explained by the differences in the Baroque versus the modern bow. The viola da gamba bow was curved in the opposite direction from the bow of today and held with the hand underneath the frog, making the stronger strokes the up-bows and the weaker ones the down, opposite of what is produced by the modern bow. Therefore many passages need to be reversed as to bow direction. Due to the nature of the modern bow grip, passages which were planned for the upper half of the bow, now fall more naturally in the lower half. This creates a different musical effect than was perhaps intended. Differences of opinion exist as to whether martelé and spiccato bowing were in use during Bach's time.
His own projected edition not with-standing, Silva deplored the practice of creating more and more editions of the Suites, believing that: "This treatment of musical articulation in the unaccompanied violoncello suites is a sort of wild fowl that has undergone a series of moultings from time to time ... That a completely different bird has come forth each time can be attributed largely to high-minded, but unfortunately misdirected editorial efforts."‡ Only in the cello suites does there seem to be an unspoken license for wholesale edits. Although most scholar/cellists would not dream of altering one note, even known mistakes, due to the widespread practice, they think nothing of tampering with bowings, creating yet another edition.
Having said this, the following pages will compare like movements and editions of the same suite, demonstrating the differences in performance notes, choosing from all five cellists represented by the Collections. Of particular interest are the comparisons of the Silva bowings from 1947 and 1956 and the Casals bowings from the Elizabeth Cowling Collection.
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Web site article written by Joan Velten Staples, Cello Music Cataloger, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This material may not be reproduced/republished in any format without the expressed permission of Walter Clinton Jackson Library of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
