Recording of the Month
JS Bach Cello Suites Rachel Podger (violin)
‘Rachel Podger somehow creates the sensation of composing the music as she goes along’
JS Bach
Cello Suites Nos 1-6 Rachel Podger (violin) Channel Classics CCS SA 41119 (hybrid CD/SACD) 127.38 mins (2 discs)
Even in the hands of a master cellist there are certain physical and acoustic properties inherent to the cello that (quite naturally) form an intimate connection with any interpretative overview. As a result, the overriding impression we have of this music is one of enhanced lower resonance – even when using a period instrument or copy – and of certain inbuilt expressive properties imparted by the cello’s rich bass and plangent tenor regions, and the enhanced clarity and directness of its upper partials. The violin is a different kind of instrument in nearly every way – not just in terms of pitch and expressive personality, but most crucially in these particular works, rapid string-crossing and multiple-stopping are more elegantly achievable without any sense of ‘snatching’.
As a result, the effect of listening to Rachel Podger’s captivating performances is akin to a sense of the music having been in some way ‘freed-up’. Music that one thinks of instinctively as boldly etched, deeply (in every sense) introspective and eliciting a melancholic sense of struggle becomes more dance-like, airy and freewheeling. This is not to suggest that these supreme masterpieces are anything but intimately bound up with the cello’s unique soundworld and technical proclivities – the writing is quite different much of the time compared to the solo violin partitas and sonatas. Yet there is an enhanced technical comfort, agility and tonal clarity, not to say brightness
of sound, associated with the violin that at the very least creates an illusion (no matter how synthetic) of the music having had a good spring clean.
Of course, this would count for virtually nothing if it wasn’t for Podger’s insightful performances. Without mannerism, distortion or furrowed-brow reverence, she somehow creates the sensation of composing the music as she goes along. If one didn’t know they were intended for the cello, one would naturally assume the suites were violin originals after experiencing her life-enhancing playing, which keeps the ear focussed (affectionately) on the music pure and simple – and for once we are spared the interpretative subtext of ‘Artist at Work.’ This is felt most keenly in the famous Sarabande from the Fifth Suite, which is subtly tinged with a wistful reflectiveness rather than loaded with expressive rhetoric in every phrase.
The effect is akin to a sense of the music having been in some way ‘freed-up’
Those listeners familiar with the suites in their original cello guise may experience a feeling of enhanced harmonic coherence due to the violin’s more restrained resonance and narrower intonational field. Those with a keen sense of relative key colour may also detect changes in tonal perspective due to the necessary transpositions involved – the Second Suite, for example, moves from a rich D minor to the unadorned immediacy of A minor. With the help of expert technical team Jonathan Freeman-attwood and Jared Sacks, Podger even manages to interpolate certain low notes in the ‘five-string’ Sixth Suite using a viola C string without the slightest hint of the ‘trickery’ involved. A spellbinding set that is arguably Podger’s finest recorded achievement to date.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★