The fact that Bach also wrote a version of the Fifth Cello Suite for lute has fascinated me for a very long time. When I was studying with Gregor Piatigorsky in Los Angeles in the 1960s, he shared with me a photocopy of the lute suite manuscript and I almost immediately began to incorporate some of its elements into the cello suite. I did this because Bach’s manuscript for the Cello Suites has disappeared and here at last was a true manuscript of at least one of them, even if in a different key (G minor) and for a different instrument.

Over the years there have from time to time been tantalizing reports of rediscovered Bach manuscripts, but never those of the Cello Suites. Luckily, we have four copies of the works – two made in the composer’s lifetime and two from the late 18th century. The two earlier ones were made by his wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, and by organist and composer Johann Peter Kellner, and most often the former (AMB) is used as the general source.

The lute version (‘Pièces pour la Luth à Monsieur Schouster par J.S. Bach’) is written on paper said to be from the same period as AMB, or roughly 1727–31. But which came first? Maybe an answer comes from the title page of the very beautiful fair copy of Bach’s violin solo works in the composer’s own hand and dated 1720 that suggests that in naming the violin works ‘Libro Primo’ (Book 1) he must have already written the Cello Suites (Book 2). And all his life, Bach revisited earlier works and “touched them up” - so my instinct is that the lute one came second. But in either case the chance to see and hear how Bach thought, writing for an instrument without a bow but with more strings, is compelling. We learn of harmonies that are sometimes quite unexpected and also that he valued what he had written for the cello but wanted to expand upon it.

To share my discoveries, I set about combining the lute version with AMB. What I have done is straightforward: the Prelude incorporates as much lute detail as I could keep; and since all the dance movements that follow are in repeated sections, I use the cello version as the first statement and the lute version as an ornamented reprise. Clearly, a four-stringed instrument cannot do all that a lute can do. I have therefore had to make choices as to what to omit. I have tried to capture the true deviations from AMB and, with rare exceptions, have been careful not to add my own notes. Thus, every note that is new to those familiar only with the cello version was for sure written by Bach.

There is one more wonderful gift we get from Bach’s lute version, and that is how to apply ornamentation. If we think of the cello version as the unadorned message, the addition of appoggiaturas and extra notes in the lute version is a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for understanding how and where Bach would add ornaments. Having the two versions side by side tells us not only where he would add but also where he wouldn’t. A good place to examine for comparison is the second part of the Allemande. Note also that the lute version here spells out precisely the notion of ‘double dotting’, a common occurrence in Baroque performance practice. Also, until recently, most editions changed the down-beat bass note in bar 25 to B flat. That is what Casals played. But every source of the Cello Suites has a G – which sounds strange until one hears the lute version with a filled-out chord!

With the added strings of the lute one can expect fuller harmonies. That is especially the case in the gavottes. In Gavotte I there are just a few relatively mild surprises, but in Gavotte II, Bach provides a complete bass-line accompaniment.

In the Gigue, there are two important additions in the lute version – the filling-out of suspended notes and the addition of more complex voices (compare bars 60–65 to bars 60a–65a). When one hears the lute in the same bars it all makes sense. And especially in the second half for lute, can’t you just see him proud of his own facility as a juggler of lines?

My version is of course “harder” to play than the cello one. I’ve tried to help with some fingering and bowing suggestions, including making use of the scordatura and higher positions. Mostly my hope is that even if cellists choose not to play this version, they will have a broader understanding of what is implicit in the relatively spare cello version.

-Laurence Lesser
2018

Listen to free previews of the Prelude and Allemande from Bach Cello Suite No. 5 recorded by Laurence Lesser or visit CD Baby to purchase the entire album.

Please note: All performances of this arrangement must credit Laurence Lesser

Also be sure to download the Ovation Press Pablo Casals edition of the Bach Cello Suites!