The cello pilgrimage

Information for programme sheets

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Here are some ideas on what you might like to include in a programme or sheet which you give out to the audience.

If you do decide to have a programme sheet, please print Orlando's biography to give the audience some information on who they are listening to, and also information about the pilgrimage so people know why they are there!

Orlando Jopling biography

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Orlando Jopling's teachers include the legendary William Pleeth, Alexander Baillie and Raphael Wallfisch. He divides his time between giving recitals all over Europe and America and guesting with the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. He has given over sixty recitals of solo Bach in rural churches which have raised over £40,000 for their restoration and upkeep.

He regularly conducts the English Chamber Orchestra both in the recording studio and on the concert platform, and has also conducted the London Mozart Players, Irish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He is musical director of the Royal Orchestral Society and Kew Sinfonia.

He has performed with Sinéad O'Connor, working with her on a version for orchestra of her latest album, and he has conducted over twenty five opera productions, many as musical director of Stanley Hall Opera and the contemporary opera specialist Tete a Tete.

His music for TV has been heard on all the major UK channels, and he is artistic director of Roman River Music, who produce an annual music festival in coastal Essex.

The cello pilgrimage

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This concert is part of Orlando Jopling’s journey around England, playing the Bach cello suites in parish churches to raise funds for their repair, restoration and upkeep, and celebrating churches as a hub of the community as well as places of spiritual repose and renewal.

Do you know a church in need of funds? If so please pass on details of the website below to those involved in the fundraising effort. Thank you! Your help in spreading the word will enable Orlando Jopling to keep on helping our wonderful churches raise money for repair and restoration.

www.cellopilgrimage.co.uk

THE SUITES

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No 1 in G major

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet I & II, Gigue
The most intimate of the Suites. The Prelude, consisting mainly of arprggiated chords, is probably the best known movement from the entire set of suites, and is regularly heard on tevelision and in films.

No. 2 in D minor

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuet I & II, Gigue

This Suite is a for me the truest depiction of what it is to be human. It is unshowy but satisfying to listen to, and glows with an inner positivity despite the minor key.

No. 3 in C major

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Bourrée I & II, Gigue

A confident, outgoing Suite which is almost as well-known as the first.

No. 4 in Eb major

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Bourrée I & II, Gigue

A fiendishly difficult key to play in, this Suite is the most difficult to pull off in performance.

No. 5 in C minor

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte I & II, Gigue

The top string of the cello is tuned down a tone for this Suite. This means that there are two strings with the pitch of G, the second most important note in the key of C minor after C itself. The string will resonate with the structurally important notes, strengthening the architecture of the music. It also darkens the tone colour of the cello for this most soulful of the Suites.

The Prelude begins with a slow, dramatic movement that explores further the deep range of the cello. It is followed by a demanding fugue in which the cellist has to conjure up the illusion of several voices. The Sarabande uses an incredible economy of musical gesture. For Rostropovitch it was the essence of Bach's genius, and Tortelier called it an extension of silence.

No. 6 in D major

Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Bourrée I & II, Gigue
The 6th Suite is on a far grander scale than the other Suites; Rostropovitch called it a symphony for cello. An additional challenge is that it was composed for a cello with an extra string, tuned a 5th above the top string. Playing the work on a normal cello involves virtuoso use of the thumb and high positions to make up for the missing string.

Orlando writes about the pilgrimage:

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Well, it was three things coming together really. I've always loved the peace and tranquillity of churches, and their sense of history. It’s great for getting perspective on things; they give the space for thoughts to come to the surface. Often I’ve wanted to play some music there – to fill the space and to breathe some life into the stones.

Secondly, I’m lucky enough to play the cello, for which Bach wrote the wonderful suites. They seem to match the spirit of the churches perfectly.

And lastly I know that it is an ongoing challenge to keep each one of those churches in good repair for the next generation. I’d like to do my bit to help, and also celebrate them as a meeting point for the community and a space for reflection.

Background

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In 1713 the new Duke of Brandenburg, the self-styled ‘King in Prussia’, was crowned. Friedrich Wilhelm I proved to be an efficient administrator but was an autocratic and humourless leader, uninterested in the trifling diversions of high culture.

One of his first actions was to disband, without warning, the famous court orchestra in Berlin. Brandenburg’s most talented performers were dissipated throughout the loosely aligned states and principalities of Germany.

However, for the young, cultured Prince Leopold of Cöthen (a lovely small town in the rolling countryside southwest of Berlin), this was a heaven-sent opportunity to augment his own capella by securing some of the most accomplished players in the country, among them the cellist Christian Ferdinand Abel, for whom Bach wrote the Suites.

After discovering Grützmacher's edition in a charity shop, Pablo Casals began studying and performing the works, although it was 35 years before he agreed to record the pieces. Their popularity soared soon after.

Each of the Suites begins with a Prelude, followed by dance movements: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gavotte and Gigue.

The dance movements

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The Suites are made up of a prelude and five dances

ALLEMANDE

The Allemande (2nd mvt) originated in the Renaissance as a duple-metre dance of moderate tempo. The dancers form a line of couples, extend their paired hands forward, and parade back and forth the length of the room, walking three steps, then balancing on one foot. A livelier version uses three springing steps and a hop.

COURANTE

The Courante (3rd mvt) (from the French for ‘running’) is a triple-metre dance from the late Renaissance, danced with fast running and jumping steps, sometimes broken up by hops between the steps.

SARABANDE

The first known mention of the Sarabande (4th mvt) was made in a Central American text of 1539. It became popular in the Spanish colonies and then in Spain, where it was quickly banned for its fast and loose rhythms and obscenity. Like many of the dances in the Suites, we find later descriptions in Protestant northern Europe of the slow, courtly Saraband – in fact in the Suites is is always the slowest movement.

GAVOTTE, BOURREE

5th mvts: All three types originated as French folkdances. The Gavotte takes its name from the Gavot people of Dauphiné, a former department of South-eastern France. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time (e.g. either four or two beats per bar) and is of moderate tempo. Its distinctive rhythmic feature is that phrases begin in the middle of the bar. The gavotte requires crossing of the feet twice in each step pattern; each step is followed by a hop. The Bourée (one of several spellings current during Bach’s lifetime) originated in the Auvergne in the 17th century. It is danced in quick double time, and starts on the last crochet of a bar, creating a quarter-bar upbeat, (the Gavotte has a half-bar upbeat). The dance survives to this day in the Auvergne.

MENUET

The Menuet is a social dance in 3/4 time. The word was adapted, under the influence of the Italian minuetto, from the French menuet, meaning small, pretty, delicate. The word refers probably to the short steps, pas menus, taken in the dance. Bach would have known it as a slow, ceremonious, and graceful dance.

GIGUE

The Gigue (6th & last mvt) is a baroque dance in compound time (e.g. each beat can be divided into three quick beats) that originated in the British Isles and became widespread in aristocratic circles of Europe. It is also a medieval name for a bowed string instrument, from which the modern German word Geige (“violin”) derives. Whereas true jigs were quick and wild solo dances, the courtly gigues were danced by couples in ballet style.

List of future performances

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If you have space we would be very grateful if you could list future cello pilgrimage concerts in your vicinity, in case any of your audience are inspired to let their friends know or visit another church to hear some other Suites.