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Finckel Four Cellos Plays Bach

For mp3 sound samples, please visit Bach page

CD Price: $15.00

This recording brings together a range of works from all periods of Bach’s productive life.  From early works for organ, to the well known “Air” from his Third Orchestral Suite, to what is purported to be his final composition, the organ chorale Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit, we encounter the flawless poetry of his music.  We hear him by turns as weaver of comples textures, spinner of ornate melodies and master of contrapuntal forms.

Central to the works presented are selections from Bach’s compositions for organ based on chorale melodies.  A devout Lutheran, Bach was naturally concerned with the chorale and, among the approximately 170 ortgan chorale settings which he made, all styles and forms known to Baroque composers are represented.  As with other forms of composition, he brought these to a summit of artistic perfection.

Depth, as an overall characteristic, pervades the works selected for this recording and what more suitable instsrument to embody that attribute than the cello.  For the past four decades, transcriptions of Bach’s works have remained at the heart of the Finckel Cello Quartet’s repertoire. Time and again, these pieces have risen to the surface as gems in a crown of jewels.  They address us directly, no matter the occasion.  No note in any part is superfluous; every line tells us something we’ve longed to hear.  Bach himself was an inveterate transcriber, re-inventing his own works and those of his contemporaries to suit a variety of contexts.  Surely, if he had heard a cello quartet, with its registral and dynamic versatility and great warmth of wound, he would have been drawn to employ it as a medium for original works from his pen.

As an outgrowth of George Finckel’s increasing use of cello ensembles as an integral part of his teaching, the Finckel Cello Quartet emerged in the late 1960’s as, first, sons Michael and Christopher, and, later, nephew David began to participate.  Soon, members of the Quartet, composers, colleagues and friends contributed arrangements, transcriptions and original pieces to a rapidly expanding library of first-class works for cello ensemble.  In 1994, several years after George Finckel’s death, Adam Grabois joined the Quartet.