J.s. Bach's Six Suites for Violoncello on the Viola [CD], Marc Sabbah, CD

The six suites for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 10071012) occupy a singular position within the instrumental canon. At once pedagogical, architectural, and profoundly spiritual, they explore the full polyphonic and rhetorical potential of a single melodic instrument. Their transmission history - preserved only in copies, without an autograph manuscript - already points to a degree of textual openness that has shaped their performance tradition for over two centuries. In this recording, violist Marc Sabbah approaches the cycle not as a transcription in the narrow sense, but as an idiomatic recontextualization. Performing the suites on the viola involves both subtle transpositions and carefully considered adjustments of voice-leading, guided by historical awareness and organological logic.