Cellist Zuill Bailey performs the Bach Cello Suites Thursday at Davis Concert Hall. Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco
Rare, because, while these suites and movements from them are often performed individually at recitals, they are seldom presented live as a group. “I’ve only seen them done this way a couple of times,” said Bailey. It seems to be the first time ever that the full sextet has been played in Alaska.
Exquisite, because these “symphonies for solo cello” are, in Bailey’s words, “The cellist’s Bible, the beginning and the end, an open canvas for exploration.”
Furthermore, Bailey’s recent Telarc recording of the same six suites hit number one in sales on the classical music charts this year — so not only is Alaska hearing a major musical monument, but we’ll be hearing it from arguably the most important interpreter of the moment.
“Bailey puts a sympathetic but highly personal imprint on nearly evey bar,” said the Philadelphia Inquirer. “On an emotional level he’s deeply involved in the music,” reported Gramophone Magazine. “Probably the best-sounding recording of the works currently available,” added the critic for the Classical Candor blog.
That’s high praise given the competition. Pablo Casals made the first recording of the full set in 1925, about 200 years after they were composed, and that recording remains available. Yo Yo Ma also had a number one classical hit with them in 1985.
But each approach is different, in part because there is no autograph manuscript and the four earliest surviving copies (including one by Bach’s second wife) are not identical.
“You can get in the general ballpark,” said Bailey, “but there’s no definitive version.”
The upshot is that, in the right hands, each of the individual suite “explores a different dimension of the mind,” he said. “It’s beyond a concert or an event. When heard as a group, it chemically changes people. They walk in as one person and walk out, spiritually, as another, both as a listener and as a player.”
Some of the catharsis emerges from the continuity presented by a single-sitting presentation (with an intermission in the case of the upcoming programs). That’s more or less the way Bailey recorded them, he said, over a series of days, stopping only to sleep.
The right tool also helps; it takes a remarkable instrument to accommodate the range of effects necessary to turn a solo performance into a hall-filling sonic experience. Bailey has such a one, made by Matteo Gofriller in 1693. “Bach was 8 years old when this cello was made,” he said.
For local classical music lovers, there’s a bonus in this; Bailey has been designated to take over as artistic director of the Sitka Summer Music Festival when Paul Rosenthal steps down over the next couple of years.
Violinist Rosenthal, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, came to Alaska in the late 1960s at the behest of his brother, Don, a bassoonist with the New York Woodwind Quintet who fell in love with the state while on tour and had various jobs including teaching in Homer and construction work in Fairbanks.
Paul Rosenthal also took a shine to the country and became a resident. He instructed for a while at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and has often performed with the Fairbanks Symphony many times. In 1972, he informally invited fellow students from master classes given by Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky to perform a series of chamber music programs with him, and the Sitka festival was born.
Bailey was also born that year, in Alexandria, Virginia. (Zuill is a family name.) He became familiar with Rosenthal and his work through his teachers, some of whom performed in the Sitka series, which over the years spun off performances across the state, including bush town like Savoonga and Togiak.
But he didn’t actually meet Rosenthal until about five years ago. “I came to Sitka and made a short visit. It was one of those magical things that, on my first conversation with Paul, I knew that we see things the same way.”
He noted several similarities with a music festival that he directs in El Paso, Texas, where he is a university instructor in cello.
“I came back to Sitka and we kept talking, about community and how important music and culture and the arts are in society. Then Paul said, ‘I would like to continue this festival, but it’s time for me to step aside. Would you like to carry the torch?’”
The transition will not be abrupt. Rosenthal continues to be involved in concerts, and plans to remain part of the festival for the foreseeable future.
But Bailey is ready.
“The Sitka Summer Music Festival is, to me, kind of the heart beat that pumps the artistic blood across the state. It needs to be consistent and dependable.”
And he sounds as enthusiastic about being here as he is about the Bach suites. He’s performed here often, both as a soloist — including with the Fairbanks
Symphony Orchestra in
the Elgar Concerto last
February — and as part of the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey Piano Trio.
“I’ve played in Alaska more than I remembered. In Sitka, in Anchorage, in Kodiak, in Fairbanks at 40 below. It’s one of those great wonders of the world. Whether it’s freezing or in bloom, it’s jaw-dropping."
IF YOU GO
What: Zuill Bailey — Bach Cello Suites
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Davis Concert Hall
Tickets: $30 for adults, $25 for Seniors and $10 for students and children. Available online at www.fairbankssymphony.org, at the door or at the Fairbanks Symphony office
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