Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007–1012

Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007–1012, collection of six suites for solo cello written about 1720 by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are noted for their rich texture and emotional resonance.

Although the suite had developed as a genre much earlier, it did not gain prominence until the Baroque era. During that period the core of a suite consisted principally of dance movements—usually an allemande, a courante, a sarabande, and a gigue (jig)—but it was not intended as actual dance music. To each of his suites for cello, Bach added a prelude and a penultimate fast movement (a minuet in suites 1 and 2, a bourrée in suites 3 and 4, and a gavotte in suites 5 and 6). The Bach cello suites may have been written as practice pieces intended to help hone a player’s technique; when examined in order of numbering, they reveal a progression from relatively straightforward to highly complex demands upon the performer’s skills.

After Bach’s death his suites were largely forgotten by the general public, and they remained little known until they were performed and recorded by the virtuoso Spanish cellist Pablo Casals in the 1930s. By the early 21st century they had become an essential part of the professional cellist’s repertoire. Among the many recordings available were those by such eminent cellists as Janos Starker, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as later cellists of renown. The cello suites have also been transcribed for guitar, trumpet, and many other instruments.