Baroque cello or modern cello in the Bach Suites? Why not both? Joel Becktell has recorded a double album featuring two performances of the first three suites, one on Baroque cello, the other on a modern instrument. Aside from Baroque cello’s lower tuning and more muted sonority, the interpretations prove quite similar between the two versions. Becktell obviously has worked out his phrasings, tempos, dynamics, and accentuation down to the last detail.
Aside from his superb technique, Becktell usually conveys an understated yet cogent sense of the music’s dance origins, yet also shapes phrases so that they don’t fall into square patterns. You particularly notice this in the G major Courante’s cross rhythms, the D minor Allemande’s melodic ebb and flow, and the C major Prelude’s proportioned flexibility. The C major Sarabande stands out in both readings for how Becktell controls and sustains the slow moving phrases with the most discreet vibrato possible.
Sometimes a studied air permeates Becknell’s music making, as in the tiny breath pauses between phrases in the C major Bourées, or the slightly protracted long notes in the D minor Courante and Menuets. Whatever Becktell may lack in spontaneity is compensated by the cellist’s astute harmonic awareness and feeling for architecture. His intelligent, intimately scaled, and beautifully engineered readings augur well for Volume 2 of this “double cycle”.