Product Description

One evening, not long after ending a stint as the pop music critic at the Montreal Gazette, Eric Siblin attended a recital of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Cello Suites." There, something unlikely happened: he fell deeply in love with the music. So began an epic quest that would unravel three centuries of intrigue, politics, and passion. Part biography, part music history, and part mystery, The Cello Suites weaves together three dramatic narratives: Bach's composition of the suites and the manuscript's subsequent disappearance in the eighteenth century; Pablo Casals's historic discovery of the music in Spain in the late nineteenth century, and his popularization of the suites several decades later; and Siblin's own infatuation with the suites at the dawn of the twenty-first century. His search to learn all he can about the music leads Siblin to Barcelona, where Pablo Casals, just thirteen and in possession of his first cello, roamed the back streets with his father, in search of sheet music. To their amazement, they found Bach's lost "Cello Suites" tucked in a dark corner. Casals would play the suites every day for twelve years before finally performing them in public--and making them his own. As Siblin pursues the mysteries that continue to haunt this music more than 250 years after its composer's death, he asks the questions that have stumped modern scholars: why did Bach compose the suites for the cello, which was considered a lowly instrument in his day? And what happened to the original manuscript of the suites, which vanished after being hastily copied by Bach's second wife? The Cello Suites is a journey of discovery, fueled by the transcendent power of a musical masterpiece--and of the listeners who, like Siblin, have loved it through the ages.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #412424 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-15
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.15" h x 5.84" w x 8.62" l, .92 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The ironies of artistic genius and public taste are subtly explored in this winding, entertaining tale of a musical masterpiece. Music critic Siblin parallels short, fluent biographies of composer Johann Sebastian Bach, whose six suites for solo cello were long disparaged as minor student exercises, and cello virtuoso Pablo Casals, whose landmark recording of the pieces catapulted them into the classical canon. Their lives are a study in contrasts: Bach is an obscure workaday musician who feels wasted being merely the cantor of a Lutheran boarding school; Casals, a musical superstar and anti-Fascist exile, is a romantic hero. Siblin intertwines his own story of trying to engage with the suites. He takes cello lessons, savors a rich variety of performances, including one on the marimbas, and embarks on a search for Bach's long-lost manuscript to discover clues to the enigmatic score. (Scholars aren't even certain the suites were written for cello.) Siblin is an insightful writer with an ability to convey the sound and emotional impact of music in words. (Jan.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* A former pop-music critic, Siblin was transported to the eighteenth century when his imagination was captured by a performance of Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello. He embarked on a journey—part historical, part personal—to discover for himself the music that has remained a pillar of the cello repertoire since Pablo Casals recorded the suites in 1936. Siblin traveled to Leipzig looking for traces of the German composer, and to the Catalonian coast of Spain to trace the steps of the suites’ first modern master. Included in his thorough research are interviews with cellists such as Mischa Maisky and Anner Bylsma, who describe the complexities of the music and the challenges it presents to the soloist. In Siblin’s history of the composer, Bach is far from the stuffy image often applied to classical music; he appears restless, brash, and proud, occasionally landing in jail for upsetting a patron. Siblin’s writing is most inspired when describing the life of Casals, showing a genuine affection for the cellist, who, caught in the throes of the Spanish civil war and World War II, used his instrument and the suites as weapons of protest and pleas for peace. --Elliot Mandel

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