Lost Time - Bach's First Cello Suite

by Derek Gripper

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of BALLAKÉ SISSOKO AND DEREK GRIPPER, Lost Time - Bach's First Cello Suite, Sleep Songs for My Daughter, 32 Minutes in a Boston Living Room (Live to Cassette), Billy Goes to Durban, One Night on Earth: Live in 2021, Arvo Pärt, Guy Buttery and Derek Gripper Live in Cape Town, and 16 more. , and , .

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1.	Prologue (to the 1st Cello Suite) 03:56	buy track
2.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 02:50	buy track
3.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: II, Allemande (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 02:01	buy track
4.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: III. Courante (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 01:45	buy track
5.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: IV. Sarabande (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 01:02	buy track
6.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: V. Menuetts I & II (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 01:47	buy track
7.	Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: VI. Gigue (Arr. for Guitar by Derek Gripper) 00:54	buy track
8.	Epilogue (to the 1st Cello Suite) 01:13	buy track

about

This record was made in Cape Town in a single take, a non-stop performance of the six dances of the first cello suite by J.S.Bach, while listening closely to Guy Buttery's tanpura which he recorded on his farm in the Midlands of Kwazulu Natal.

The tanpura is the big stringed drone instrument used as the backdrop of Indian classical performance. I have used Guy's multitracked recording of a few different sizes of tanpura for a few years now, to play Bach at home.

I have long felt that Bach's solo violin and cello music is monophonic. Which means it is played from a single tonal centre...ie can be heard against a drone. It may explore different regions of that original tone, like a classical Indian musician would explore the raag in the introductory alap of a classical performance, but the return is always straight back home. AUM.

This recording is the closest I have come to showing this to people in musical form. Arguments are odious. Music tells all.

Enjoy.

Why Lost Time? Because I was reading Proust at the time. Slowly and incompletely to be honest. But reading nevertheless. Proust never lets narrative rhythm ruin a good description, and I find that savouring every musical movement that Bach writes, over and above a sense of metronomic time, gives me huge musical joy.

credits

released March 18, 2024

Guitar playing by Derek Gripper
Tanpura by Guy Buttery (automated by Derek Gripper)
Crickets by crickets
Mixed and edited by Derek Gripper
Recorded by Jethro Harris
Mastered by Murray Anderson
Cover photo by Derek Gripper in Gümüşlük, Turkey
Cover design by Toby Attwell of Twoshoes Design.
Produced by Derek Gripper for Platoon.
Arrangement available here: derekgripper.gumroad.com/l/nbjig

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about

Derek Gripper Cape Town, South Africa

Derek Gripper creates original music from his diverse influences: Toumani Diabaté, Salif Keita, Arvo Part, and Egberto Gismonti. Derek has also spent many years performing and recording his own translations of Bach’s violin and cello music, infusing his interpretations with his lessons from the oral traditions of Africa. ... more

derekgripper.com

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