My favorite interpretation of the Second Prelude by a non cello player is your student Michael Buchanan. You recommended that disc to me. Thanks for the amazing content sir!

The Late Cliff Jones trombone Professor at Kneller Hall the Royal Military School of Music used to say you could spend a whole year practicing the Bach Cello suites and still not get them right .Also his predecessor Bill Teskey used the Lafosse trombone tutor for all KH pupil's and the Bach suites in the book . Mind you that was a long time ago .I used to have the Mark Lusk versions with cd but loaned it to someone and lost it 😢l do like the Massimo La Rosa recordings of the cello suites I've not heard many other trombonists play them .Going back to my days at KH Don Lusher came to do a Trombone clinic with his Quartet ,it was fantastic for me as a young 17 year old , but at one point he came to the front away from his microphone and attempted to play a Bach Cello suite ,it really wasn't very good and Bill Teskey the trombone Professor got up and walked out in disgust.I must admit it was very rude of him ,but it does really highlight the point you are making that the Cello suites are not just legato and phrasing études,they are works of Art that deserve respect.thank you for this enlightening video and Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2024

Very cool! I want to say this goes back to the original pedagogical intention of the cello suites for trombone. Remington always taught them I believe as a musical exercise and to build your own sound world.

I don't mind anybody play any music. Bach would have probably been the last person who would have minded. He was very pragmatic and practical. It's a different matter if it always works. I find especially the cello suites difficult for any wind instrument, and not only for the breathing. The chords, the technical challenges and everything. There are so many compromises to be made. When I want to enjoy them as fantastic music I rather take out Steven Isserlis, Anner Bylsma or Boris Pergamenchikov's recordings (a few others, too). Actually there are even many recordings from famous cellists which are hard to enjoy either. This said, there are maybe two or three trombone players in the world from whom I really would want to hear the Cello suites and you are one of them, because I think you both have the technical ability and the musicianship and knowledge about the style that they require. But I believe there's a lot of great music that suits the trombone much better.

When approaching any piece on the trombone that wasn't conceived for the trombone, the question -should- be: do we play this as a trombone piece or as a piece for the instrument it was intended? IOW, there is a HUGE literature supposedly intended for cello, gambe "basso", often without actual instrument being defined, but supposed by modern musicologists. And then, modern cello and cello playing style is quite different than baroque or early baroque. So when I do play this music on bass trombone, I study the baroque motivic phrasings as laid out in the original treatises. Then I listen to gamba players and baroque cello players and how they phrase. And the DO actually breahte through the music. They phrase completely differently than modern cellists do. And THEN it works very well, because the motives are bite-sized, not minute-long.

Bach on trombone = Pandoras Box! Rarely does it sound good enough. Michael Buchanans impeccable rendition shows it can be done, when intelligent phrasing ‘covers’ the awkward need to breathe! The ultimate challenge ! Looking forward to your Bach solo recordings Ian!

Well said Ian! A classic manifestation of institutional low (brass) self-esteem. These pieces service humility. The answer is 'yes', but never 'perform' them, for expecting to ultimately and reliably fail musically. For good reason, there are no cello performances that 'I' care for either. That being said...too many trombonists, as do too many cellist (though in their case...unnecessarily), perturb these pieces past both their musical service and authority. The problem is that these pieces are riddles! There is no way to win, and Bach intended them as such. For instance, the last note of every phrase must be played 'as such', but it is also the first note of the phrase that follows it and must be played 'as such', BUT...first and last notes of phrases serve different purposes and must be played differently, so how do you play a single note in two different ways at the same time...you can't! You lose. The ridiculous musical means (usually overly affected rubato and unjustified ritardando) that trombonists employ to try to...'excuse' the fact that they must breathe at inopportune moments always results in a comedy of music errors that only another trombonist would be 'able' to forgive. And that's the 'real' problem! TROMBONISTS SHOULDN'T FORGIVE MUSICAL FALIURE ON ACCOUNT OF TECHNICAL SUCCESS! Sure, be impressed by the technical facility required, and the ingenuity employed to 'attempt' compensation of the music, but the last thing trombonists need is another excuse to play unmusically. Trombonists, as with all instrumental teachers, indoctrinate their students to...'forgive' the failings of the current performance paradigm's assumed mechanical obligation to forgive rather than overcome its own musical shortcomings. The problem is that prior to the trombone establishing its...'viability' as a legitimate or soloistic musical voice, the trombone's obvious mechanical...peculiarities have in practice proved the excuse to 'not' endeavour to evolve its state of play such that it convincingly defeats its own mechanical challenges. Composers didn't, in general, write for it because of what experience had taught them were the trombones indelible limitations. Instead of pursuing a more musically productive performance paradigm, orchestral trombonists have pointlessly and independently promoted and pursued, counter intuitively, their own musical deficit, to the point that they have all but ensured their own musical...obsolescence. While clarinets and oboes have evolved in address of technical challenges to making music, trombonists have simply gotten louder and even less musical. I was working at playing these on a small bore instrument (having retired from orchestral play decades previous for lacking resonance and respect for the dominant performance paradigm) to win more lengthy and luxurious phrases, and using 'extreme' alternate positions in address of facility, flow, and virtuosity. But I was struck with focal dystonia and unable to complete my own evolution towards...musical fruition on the trombone. I wonder then what a virtuosic player like Bob McChesney might accomplish with these pieces given his deft defeat of those mechanical aspects of play that so much trouble the orchestral trombonists, trained as they are, and determined to shout and muscle their way through every phrase on equipment ill-suited to nuance. Why have trombones gotten louder in orchestras subject to balance? Simply...orchestras are no longer balanced! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a5xxfs9l2q6vmnU.htmlsi=nSy6YTIBcY5x2WWJ&t=16

I would like to have heard James Markey take a stab at the cello suites when he was still a tenor player. His youthful recordings of the Schumann Romances are the most 'untrombonistic' performances I've ever heard. And that's a good thing! No instrument should impose or project it's...mechanical awkwardness onto the music as it were an obligation or badge of honor to be excused in service for valiantly having...dared, tried, and failed. Trombonists more than any other instrumentalists offend against music as an accepted quality of performance, which is why composers don't write for them, and no one wants to hear an orchestral trombonist 'solo' solo! Markey's musical traversal of these pieces requires 'no' qualification', and thing you can't say that about any other trombone performance. Trombone performances have a musical face that only a mother could love. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fc-dfJSp1LzDqac.htmlsi=v3b0xNjg7Uc9Ux9m

Honestly, there is too much mystification around Bach, just like with Mozart. Just play the music.