This, the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, must be one of the most beautiful, and as a result recognizable, pieces of music ever written. Bach’s cello suites (there are six in all) are written without accompaniment, which can at times be a dry and tedious scoring for instrumental music. Perhaps one of the reasons that Bach elected to write solo works for cello is because of the range of the instrument, something to take into consideration when looking at the way in which the instrument in these pieces is able to create multiple voices by way of dividing lines among different registers. The effect is a dynamic and interesting series of arpeggios and figurations that fills out the sound very effectively.
It might seem hackneyed and trite to post about this piece of music, but I would reject claims that certain pieces of music are not worth talking about simply because they are heard regularly and may have been discussed at length. In some ways, it’s worth talking about them even more and asking new questions about why they are so well-known.
Here, the work is performed by Mstislav Restropovich, who plays it a touch faster than is common, but his technical precision is matched by few, if any.
