Johann Sebastian Bach’s six Suites for solo cello BWV 1007–1012 were written around 1720 in Köthen. This album brings together the first three: the Suite in G major BWV 1007, the Suite in D minor BWV 1008 and the Suite in C major BWV 1009. Each opens with a Prélude and then follows the fixed sequence of Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuett I and II, and Gigue.
Transferring the music to the marimba changes the conditions of playing. A bowed note can be held and shaped as it sounds; a struck note dies away. What the cello can only imply as polyphony, because the bow reaches the voices one after another, really does stand side by side on the marimba; conversely, a long note has first to be created by the roll. Christian Roderburg uses that difference as a means of presentation: he sustains the bass notes as a foundation, separates the voices through the instrument’s registers and keeps the tempi of the dance movements instead of broadening them into studies.
The booklet prefaces the recording with an essay by Stefan Fricke. It deals with stock repertoire pieces, among which Bach’s cello suites have long counted: works every interpreter has to master and on which they display their skill — until the familiar no longer conveys anything. Arrangements for another instrument, Fricke argues, are precisely what can give such pieces their strangeness back: the framework remains, the manner of playing has to be invented anew, and connections emerge that stay hidden in the accustomed sound.
Christian Roderburg has worked as a freelance marimba and percussion soloist since 1978. He has appeared in Europe, Japan and the USA, has recorded numerous works for broadcasters, plays in the Düsseldorfer Schlagzeugensemble, in new music ensembles and in symphony orchestras, composes chamber music as well as music for stage and film, and directs international courses; since 1991 he has held a teaching post for percussion at the Musikhochschule Köln, Wuppertal department. The recording was made on 9 and 10 May 1995 at the Evangelische Kirche Honrath. The second volume, with the Suites BWV 1010–1012, followed in 1997.
The CD runs to 56:58; the booklet has eight pages in German and English. In this recording the Suite in G major lasts 16:55, the Suite in D minor 18:12 and the Suite in C major 21:54. Bach’s autograph is lost; the suites have come down in copies, among them one by Anna Magdalena Bach, which differ in articulation and bowing — questions that present themselves differently on the marimba, where no bow has to be guided. This recording argues that the music keeps its essence on an instrument of a different resonance as well.