
For Bach, music is numbers, geometry, mathematical
pattern. This is made explicit when, for
example, he composes his set of 24 preludes and fugues in all 24 major and
minor keys, The well-tempered clavier. What does this mean for the cello
suites? To start with, it clearly justifies
thinking of them as a whole. It is not
that there happen to be six of them. It
is that they are a set – a suite in fact – of suites. I think that this mathematical symmetry makes
the suites not only perfect in themselves but emblematically so – they are a
world, a universe, of music and of human emotions; everything is there. It might also encourage us tentatively to
ponder the fundamental analogy on which this maths is based, between the suite
and the suite movement. Is the first
suite a prelude to the other suites? Without taking things too far,
the analogy might suggest why the great prelude to the sixth suite is based on
the triplet rhythms of the gigue. Or
why, uniquely, the fifth suite has a two-part prelude (prelude and fugue) when
the fifth movement of each suite has two parts.
The analogy ought at least to encourage us to think across
the suites. Yes, each suite has its own
key, and that unity is crucial to the effect of each movement. That is why I am playing one suite per week
over six weeks (and starting at six each time) – measuring time by the unit of
the suite. But what sort of a musical
journey through the suites might a diagonal route offer? What might we learn about this music as a sum
of parts by hearing the prelude from the first suite, followed by the allemande
from the second, and so on?

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