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Educate me about cello pieces and recordings

Julian Webbers recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto is reasonable and is supported by Elgars Enigma variations including Nimrod

To try some decent violin music and to hear the beauty of the instrument try The Bruch Violin concerto or the Lark Ascending you may enjoy the sound.
 
I disagree Bach's Cello Suites are inaccessible. Musically the opposite I'd say. The whole thing is just long! But I just dip in and out with one or a few suites at a time, no problem.

My favourite is Yo-Yo Ma (sorry!)
 
I really don't think that Bach's Cello Suites are the way to start for a listener who, by his own admission, isn't drawn to orchestral strings and I suspect might be a novice to classical music in general. No matter how much you love them (and, for what it is worth, I am addicted to them) they are undoubtedly an intimidating listen (if you are are paying them the proper attention) and possibly the very definition of "heavyweight" music . These are maybe the very reasons why many of us find them so satisfying and love them so much. But I don't think it is helpful to the OP for folks to pile-in with high-brow suggestions which demonstrate their own highly cultivated tastes, when what he needs is something more attractive and, yes, accessible (there - I've said it!)

I would suggest this collection of Casals' encore pieces, which is very similar in content to an album I bought a thousand years ago and which has never failed to delight, both for classical music buffs as well as casual listeners. It also includes some of the pieces from the Cello Suites, but they do not dominate.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0077CQZNK/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
Good luck to the OP. Could be a thrilling journey!I
ML
 
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FWIW I found the Bach cello (and violin) suites instantly accessible. I absolutely loved them from the first listen. I’ve always found this type of thing far easier than the ‘popular classics’ type stuff and to this day I still really struggle with romantic symphonies etc which too often just sound like fluffy film music to me. I’d almost always take a string quartet over an orchestra! Bach is kind of like jazz or really good techno/electronica - it is all about space, counterpoint, rhythm etc. The solo cello and violin pieces have to be the best works ever written for (predominantly) monophonic instruments. No one should fear them!
 
FWIW I found the Bach cello (and violin) suites instantly accessible. I absolutely loved them from the first listen. I’ve always found this type of thing far easier than the ‘popular classics’ type stuff and to this day I still really struggle with romantic symphonies etc which too often just sound like fluffy film music to me. I’d almost always take a string quartet over an orchestra! Bach is kind of like jazz or really good techno/electronica - it is all about space, counterpoint, rhythm etc. The solo cello and violin pieces have to be the best works ever written for (predominantly) monophonic instruments. No one should fear them!
i would agree with much of what you say here. I too struggle with dense orchestral music and prefer the sparseness and lean-ness (if there is such a word), even the austerity of solo unaccompanied instruments or small ensembles. But all that means is that I have a preference for that sort of musical presentation. It doesn't make it accessible to others. To be honest, I didn't even find it accessible myself at first, I just found it compelling in a dark and rich way. It wasn't until I had become much more familiar with these pieces (and pieces like them) that I found I was responding to them in a way that would suggest they had become accessible to me.

I repeat the point I made - or tried to - in my earlier post: if someone who doesn't normally listen to classical music (and I hope the OP will forgive me if I have guessed this incorrectly) hears a tune they like in what is - let's face it - a crossover context and they love it, then that's great. But I think there is a chance of strangling that nascent interest forever if they are then urged by the cognoscenti to immediately immerse themselves in some of the weightiest and most demanding music ever written. Don't forget that Bach's Cello Suites lay unplayed and unloved for a couple of hundred years after he wrote them, until a brave Pablo Casals gave them a public airing at his own festival. There was obviously a reason for that. Yes, public taste changes with fashion and good music isn't always guaranteed to be popular. But I think we can also take it that it says something about their "accessibility" to the listener's ear and emotions.
ML
 
Don't forget that Bach's Cello Suites lay unplayed and unloved for a couple of hundred years after he wrote them, until a brave Pablo Casals gave them a public airing at his own festival. There was obviously a reason for that. Yes, public taste changes with fashion and good music isn't always guaranteed to be popular. But I think we can also take it that it says something about their "accessibility" to the listener's ear and emotions.

Context is everything though, e.g if one is coming to classical as I was from rock, new-wave, electronica, jazz etc you may well find Bach far more accessible than the so called ‘popular classics’ etc. Other than a few disinterested childhood memories my in-road to classical was via Stockhausen, Cage, Webern, Berg, Riley, Glass, Reich, Nyman etc, i.e. the stuff many view as ‘challenging’, though somehow just linked in to my existing somewhat left-field musical taste.
 
FWIW I found the Bach cello (and violin) suites instantly accessible.

I'm the same - perhaps it's because they're based on dances?

For anyone who's a little intimidated by the length of them, try the opening movement of cello suite number one. If that doesn't move you then the rest certainly won't. I always think of it as being the musical equivalent of an Escher drawing.
 
Agreed regarding the length. Just view it as an album with many different tracks and dip in and out at will - they are all self-contained. I certainly know the ones at the beginning to middle of my Starker SACD far better than the ones at the end!

PS To take the thread back a bit what piece did Kanneh-Mason actually play at the Royal Wedding thing?
 
Philip Glass's work for solo cello is worth a listen:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0012GJER6/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

It's closer to the Bach Suites than might be expected. The recording is quite beautiful as well.




For the background to the Bach Cello Suites this is a good read:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0099546787/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

A book on the discovery of the Suites the enhanced my enjoyment and uderstanding of them.

For a different type of modern cello playing this is, for me, absolutely essential

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001T6KM8Y/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

A taster


Kevin
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
I'm a big fan of Hildur Guðnadóttir - well worth checking out. She has worked on the forthcoming Sunn 0))) album which should be interesting....
 
FWIW I found the Bach cello (and violin) suites instantly accessible. I absolutely loved them from the first listen. I’ve always found this type of thing far easier than the ‘popular classics’ type stuff and to this day I still really struggle with romantic symphonies etc which too often just sound like fluffy film music to me. I’d almost always take a string quartet over an orchestra! Bach is kind of like jazz or really good techno/electronica - it is all about space, counterpoint, rhythm etc. The solo cello and violin pieces have to be the best works ever written for (predominantly) monophonic instruments. No one should fear them!

Absolutely agree. I much prefer the early music / baroque and "chamber" music. Bach Solo Violin, Cello and Piano works...yum yum. Try Podger for the Violin Sonatas and Partitas.
Most of the romantic classical pieces leave me cold.
I do however love Arvo Part's sacred music, which reference back to early music.
 
I do however love Arvo Part's sacred music, which reference back to early music.

I’ve been exploring a few of them recently as about four or five Part CDs came in with some recent ECM bulk-buying. They are really rather wonderful in a very quiet and still way. I’m enjoying them despite not having a spiritual bone in my body (I like Bach masses too despite having no connection to the subject matter)!
 
I'm rather partial to the Finzi cello concerto myself -- better than the Elgar in my opinion with more light and shade.

Another vote for Zoe Keating in the modern idium

Steve
 


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