15. Coffee Concert

15. Coffee Concert

This year’s Festival features four of the six Bach Cello Suites, Nuala McKenna is imaginatively pairing the final Bach Suite with Britten’s First Suite that he wrote for the great Russian cellist Rostropovich. Famously Britten made a promise to Rostropovich, duly set down on the notorious table napkin contract, to write six solo suites in homage to Johann Sebastian Bach; sadly he only managed three. It is a nine movement work held together by a Canto based on a theme of Bach’s that appears four times. Most distinctive is a ghostly march whose haunted bugle calls and snare drums remind us of Mahler’s Knaben Wunderhorn. Bach’s last Suite opens in a blaze of light with all five voices singing in sublime celebration. It was originally written for the Viola Pomposa, a five-string instrument with an added E string above the top A string of the four-string cello, but modern cellists all play it on a regular cello. This D major Suite is the most powerful, the most celebratory Suite in the series, dealing in nothing but grandeur and awesome beauty from the opening bars.