The wonderful cellist, Katherine Sharman, came to my house in King’s Sutton yesterday to do a private run-through of Bach’s sixth suite for solo cello. Privileged audience of three.
She’s to play it at a concert in Brighton today – and in Edinburgh on 24 March in an all-Bach programme with the London Handel Players.
The reason she wanted the run-through was that she’s recently taken delivery of a five-string cello, made for her by Mark Caudle and based on an original of 1730 by Testore. It’s a smaller instrument, about the size of a modern three-quarter cello, but with a very direct sound.
Although Kath has regularly played Bach’s other five suites (all written for the standard four-stringed instrument), she has held off playing the sixth because she knew that over recent times it’s been played mainly on the wrong instrument.
In fact, when I first encountered the sixth, some forty years ago, it was assumed, to quote a sleeve note, that “the [four-string] cello is the only possible instrument on which the suite can today be performed.”
Thank goodness for the new generation of musicians and instrument-makers, who enable us to hear great music ‒ Bach and the rest ‒ as fresh as paint.
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