Earlier this week I performed the beautiful and somber Bach D minor cello suite (the second of the 6 suites for solo cello) as part of a recital in a lovely and resonant Saxon church, St Laurence in Bradford on Avon. A church on the site dates back to around 700, but the current building is from the 12th century.
The recital wasn’t recorded, but I attach a couple of minutes filmed of me practising last month - some of the Prelude followed by some of the next movement (Allemande, named after a graceful German dance).
This was the first time I’ve performed any part of the D minor suite in public since I was 14 (in 1972). That time, I was due to play the Prelude towards the end of a school chapel service. It turned into a memorably awkward experience for me. In those days I played on gut strings, which tended to lose pitch fast. I had tuned up before the service, but as time went on, with several hymns being sung, I was gripped by a fearful suspicion that the cello was going to be badly out of tune and flat when it was my turn to perform.
I have perfect pitch, but my ear was confused by the hymn-singing. I started surreptitiously (but rather frantically) plucking the strings softly and turning the (quite stiff) pegs to tighten them so that I might bring the pitch up, taking my A from the organ tonic note and adjusting the other strings to that note.
When the time came I launched into the Prelude. It was a relief that it sounded in tune, if unusually bright to my ears. After the service, the Precentor (also my cello teacher) looked at me quizzically and said “Why on earth did you tune your cello a semitone high?”
The final hymn had been in E flat.
A Suite Story