Bach's Cello Suites and the French Bass Viol Tradition

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between the tradition of soloistic bass viol music, popular in France from c.1660-c.1747, and Bach's suites for unaccompanied violoncello, BWV 1007-1012, which scholars agree were composed during his Köthen period, c.1720. The cultural hegemony of Louis XIV's France had a profound impact on seventeenth and eighteenth-century German principalities. French became the official language of the German aristocracy, and French culture, especially music, was emulated by German courts. French dancing masters populated the noble cours, cities and towns of Germany, and, with their pochette violins, disseminated the choreographies carefully curated by Louis' Académie royale de danse. German Kapellen grew to resemble Lully's famed Vingt-quatre violons du Roi, and Germany developed its own school of virtuosic bass viol performance. French-trained German composers Johann Kusser (1660-1727), Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) and Georg Muffat (1653-1704) wrote extensive treatises detailing French instrumental practices, which were circulated throughout Germany. Bach kept ties with the highly Frenchified courts of Celle, Berlin and Dresden, and, as testified to by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in his father's obituary, had a thorough grounding in the French taste. In Köthen (Bach served as Kapellmeister there from 1717-1723), Bach developed close friendships with two important violists da gamba: Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, Bach's employer and fervent amateur violist, adn Cristian Ferdinand Abel, one of the most celebrated viol virtuosos in Germany. My research leads me to conclude that Bach's cello suites are an extrapolation of the French bass viol tradition, one with which he was certainly familiar. There are many similarities between French pièces de viole and Bach's BVW 1007-1012, both stylistically and idiomatically, which I will explore in detail. This paper will aim to serve those who wish to form a comprehensive interpretive approach to Bach's cello suites, as it will survey an oft-overlooked influence of these masterworks.