It is very likely that without the invaluable collaboration of Anna Magdalena Bach, we would not have known the Six Suites for cello solo by Johann Sebastian since the original manuscripts ended up lost. It had to be Anna Magdalena who, willingly, at night in the light of a candle, decided to make a copy of them, around 1722, shortly after Bach married her after being widowed of his first wife, Maria Barbara.
Bach in Köthen
Bach, 32, had arrived at the small court of Köthen in 1717, to serve as a chapel master at the service of Prince Leopold, a great music lover and musician himself. In a first era, Johann Sebastian made very good crumbs with Leopold. The Calvinist prince considered that religious services did not require especially elaborated music, and therefore, Bach's work of that period was oriented towards not religious instrumental music.
Suites and Partitas
The Orchestral Suites, the Six Partitas for violin and the Six Suites for cello solo date from those days. Its writing is the result of the French influence exerted by the most distinguished and exquisite courts of that time, for example, that of Versailles, on which, incidentally, the wrath of the Lord will fall seventy years later.
But first, the suites will delight the modest court of Köthen. Constructed as a succession of dances with a French name lasting no more than two or three minutes in duration (courante, gavotte, sarabande, minuet, polonaise, bourré, passepied, or giga), the first movement leads them, which is usually the most important: the overture or prelude.
Prelude for cello solo in the cinema
The Prelude to the first of the six suites for cello solo, is precisely one of Bach's pieces included in the 2007 film by Catalan director Pere Portabella, "The Silence before Bach", a kaleidoscope of attractive scenes with fragments of the life of Johann Sebastian masterfully linked to today's world. One of the most innovative moments is the one that takes place in the subway cars, where 20 or 30 cellists perform the Prelude of Suite No. 1 while the train leaves the tunnels entering an empty platform, then cross with another train, whose rattling is not muted, creating the feeling that a new prelude has emerged, one for 30 cellos and subway cars, on an original JS Bach motif.
