Cellist puts his stamp on Bach cycle
Listening to the first notes of someone’s solo Bach cycle is a little like observing your seatmate at the beginning of an international flight: I hope I like you, because we’re stuck here for a long time.
Fortunately, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras made it a pleasant ride — even with the slightly awkward (if necessary for the performer) fourhour break between sets of three suites presented by San Francisco Performances at Herbst Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 28.
Queyras, who is French and lives in Germany, recorded the suites a decade ago. It’s a release still notable for its expressivity, achieved almost exclusively through articulation and timing — and this pacing, especially, was remarkable in Sunday’s live performances.
Slight hastening and delay helped define the contours of endless lines
in movements like the Gmajor Allemande. Broadening in the brief minor-key passages tinged the otherwise sunny first and third suites with drama. And the C-minor Sarabande, unflinchingly slow and unadorned by vibrato, was perhaps the most expressive movement of the 36.
Hearing the analogous cycle of works for violin, I can’t help but feel that they have an advantage. Variety is built in: Each dance suite comes after a church sonata, which has a different scheme of movements. For the cello, though, each work takes almost exactly the same form: There are, one after another, six preludes, allemandes, courantes, sarabandes, gigues.
It helps if each suite becomes its own world, and Queyras’ characterizations, indeed, created distinctions in such a way that the second and fifth suites, for example, didn’t sound closely related despite being the only minorkey suites.
Each major-key suite, too, presented a different facet of contentment, whether mildmannered in the first suite, jubilant, or genial. Yet the last suite, bright but never exactly triumphant, hearkened back to the first, the cycle dematerializing as easily as it had begun.
Rarely did Queyras play very loudly, and choice moments — repeated sections, as well as the little postscripts after important cadences — became especially intimate. He let the little notes be small, and trying to hear often felt like gingerly reaching for something breakable.
Queyras has mentioned the idea of a speaking, rather than singing, cello. Sunday’s recitals — his first in the Bay Area — presented a Bach that was more corporeal and conversational than monumental. In fact, Queyras’ live performances, like his recording, didn’t seem much concerned with excising the blips of noise that can sometimes happen during string changes (especially with a baroque-style bow, which he used for the first concert). Instead, he played with apparent freedom of movement, creating beautifully fluid lines especially in the prelude movements.
And all of the interpolated movements — the minuets, bourrees, and gavottes Bach inserts before each final gigue — felt vitally and wonderfully human. Queyras previously performed the entire cycle in collaboration with the contemporary choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and that physical energy seems never to have left. Bach may not have meant for these dances to dance, but why not, if they can? Rebecca Wishnia is a Bay Area freelance writer.