I’m a fan of JS Bach, at least the more widely know solo stuff - Goldberg, the Cello Suites, T&F in D, etc. There’s a world of Bach music out there to be discovered.
I’m looking for a top flight recording of the Cello Suites done on Violin. If such recordings exist, I’m hoping you can steer me to the best version(s).
I have Yo Yo Ma’s brilliant cello CD’s, as well as excellent versions done on the viola and double bass.
Wandering around on youtube, I’ve seen several examples of the Cello Suites as part of the standard violin practice repertoire, but nothing I’d want to listen to on CD.
Maybe there’s a reason for that. Is there some reason why the Cello Suites are particularly ill suited for violin? It seems like they’ve been done on so many other instruments.
In a somewhat related area, could some Doper string players illuminate the tuning relationship between a cello and a double bass? The viola is tuned a fifth below the violin, so the two instruments have 3 strings that are the same pitch. How does the bass relate to the cello - assuming standard tunings?
The bass is tuned in fourths, not in fifths like cello, viola, and violin. The lowest note on the bass is E, a sixth below the cello’s low C (but written an octave above pitch). The remaining strings are A, D and G. Cello tuning is C, G, D, A, an octave below viola.
Good point. Violinists may see themselves as above all that transcription from the cello nonsense.
Now I’m wondering what they would sound like on a cello.
The bass is tuned in fourths, E A D G, for orchestral playing, sometimes with an extension on the lowest string which enables one to play down to a C, or sometimes a fifth low B string.
However, ‘solo tuning’ for the bass is a tone higher, F♯ B E A. Still fourths, but some soloists leave the lowest string as an E, which brings me to my reason for posting: Here’s Edgar Meyer doing just that to play Bach!
