Sacred Music Festival, 3rd Concert. Duval, Isserlis

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685-1750)

Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BWV 1007

Steven Isserlis, cello

György Kurtág

(1926)

Circumdederunt… in memoriam Rita Wagner-Rados for cello

Steven Isserlis, cello

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685-1750)

Chaconne in D minor, BWV 1004

Irène Duval, violin

Maurice Ravel

(1875-1937)

Sonata for violin and cello in C, M 73

Irène Duval, violin

Steven Isserlis, cello

The French word suite, originally meaning “succession,” refers to a series of pieces designed for uninterrupted performance, usually in the form of stylized dances. Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685–1750) six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello (BWV 1007–1012), most likely written during his Köthen years (1717–1723), stand as one of the finest achievements of this genre for a solo instrument. According to the most widely accepted view, they were composed before 1720 and reflect the cello’s emancipation from its earlier function as a mere accompanist—described by Agostino Agazzari (1607) as the “foundation” of the basso continuo—into an independent melodic voice, on equal footing with other leading instruments in Bach’s output. Each Suite follows a characteristic six-movement structure in the same key: Prélude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande – a galant dance (Menuet, Bourrée, or Gavotte) – Gigue. No autograph manuscripts have survived; the transmission depends chiefly on the copy prepared by Anna Magdalena Bach, long but mistakenly believed to be in the composer’s own hand. The Suites were first published only in 1825 in Vienna, under the title Six Sonates ou Études pour le Violoncelle seul. György Kurtág’s (b. 1926) Circumdederunt…(1989), written in memory of his close friend Rita Wagner, is an intensely concentrated elegy for solo cello. The title refers to the opening of Psalm 18 (Vulgate): Circumdederunt me dolores mortis [The sorrows of death encompassed me], a verse long associated with lament. Like much of Kurtág’s œuvre, the work is aphoristic, built on extreme compression, silence, and fragmentary gestures, but it communicates a profound intensity of grief and remembrance. In this miniature, the cello seems to breathe, sob, and fall silent, embodying what the composer once called “the barest possible form of human communication”. The Chaconne, concluding the Partita in D minor for solo violin (ca. 1720), has long been regarded as one of the towering monuments of instrumental music. Spanning some fifteen minutes, it unfolds over a repeating four-bar harmonic pattern, within which Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) creates an immense variety of textures, contrapuntal designs, and expressive affects. According to violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the Chaconne is “the greatest structure for solo violin that exists”. Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann (1877), described it as “a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings” compressed into a single piece. The work’s grandeur and tragic depth have also inspired numerous transcriptions, most famously Brahms’s version for piano left hand (1877) and Ferruccio Busoni’s pianistic expansion (1893). Composed between 1920 and 1922 and dedicated to Claude Debussy’s memory, Maurice Ravel’s (1875-1937) Sonata for Violin and Cello stands as a landmark of his mature style. Written for the celebrated duo Hélène Jourdan-Morhange and Maurice Maréchal, the sonata reflects both austerity and innovation: Ravel deliberately restricts the instrumentation to two equal voices, exploring a contrapuntal interplay of great rhythmic and timbral vitality. The composer himself noted that “the music is stripped to the bone”, emphasizing clarity, dissonant counterpoint, and modal inflections. In its four movements—Allegro, Très vif, Lent, and Vif, avec entrain—the sonata combines neoclassical rigor with moments of intense lyricism, embodying Ravel’s tribute to Debussy while projecting his own voice in a new, modernist idiom.

Federico Foglizzo