Following the first three suites, this album presents the second half of Johann Sebastian Bach’s cycle for solo cello: the Suite in E flat major BWV 1010, the Suite in C minor BWV 1011 and the Suite in D major BWV 1012. The layout remains the same — Prélude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, a pair of intermediate movements and Gigue — but Bourrées now take the place of the Menuetts in the fourth suite, and Gavottes in the fifth and sixth.
The last two suites set the cello particular tasks. BWV 1011 calls for scordatura: the top string is tuned down by a whole tone, which changes the fingering and gives the writing a darker colouring. BWV 1012 is written for a five-string instrument with an additional high string, whose range the ordinary cello does not have. On the marimba both conditions fall away; the registers lie open, and what appears there as a problem of fingering becomes a question of part-writing and choice of register.
In this volume too Christian Roderburg holds to the dramaturgy of the suite. The Préludes remain openings with a wide span — that of the sixth suite, at over four minutes, is the longest movement on the album — the Sarabandes keep their calm, the Gigues their momentum. The bass notes stand as a foundation, the instrument’s registers separate the voices, and the roll is used where the original asks for a sustained note.
The booklet contains the same essay by Stefan Fricke as the first volume: a discussion of stock repertoire pieces and of what arrangements for another instrument can give back to them. The recordings were made on 4 November 1996 and on 30 January and 24 March 1997 at the Evangelische Kirche Honrath, where Roderburg had recorded the first three suites two years earlier.
In this recording the Suite BWV 1010 lasts 22:51, BWV 1011 21:43 and BWV 1012 28:25 — the sixth is the most extensive of the cycle. For the fifth suite Bach himself set an example of arrangement: he wrote it out for lute as BWV 995, and this autograph has survived, whereas that of the cello suites is lost. Stefan Fricke sees an opportunity precisely in arrangements: the familiar, however fond one may be of it, need not remain the familiar, and it is worth hearing, seeing and thinking about what is known in a different way.
The CD runs to 72:59; the booklet has texts in German and English. With this second volume Bach’s cycle of the six suites is complete on the marimba. Christian Roderburg, born in 1954, has worked as a freelance marimba and percussion soloist since 1978 and teaches at the Musikhochschule Köln, Wuppertal department.