The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece

One evening, after ending a stint as a pop music critic, Eric Siblin attended a performance of Bachs Cello Suites. There, something unlikely happened: he fell deeply in love with the music. So began a quest that would unravel three centuries of intrigue, politics, and passion. Part biography, part music history, and part mystery, The Cello Suites weaves together three dramatic narratives: Bachs composition of the suites and the manuscripts disappearance in the eighteenth century, Pablo Casalss re-discovery of the music in Spain in the late nineteenth century, and Siblins infatuation with the suites at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Siblins search leads him to Barcelona, where Casals, as a teenager, roamed back streets in search of sheet music and found Bachs lost composition tucked in a dark corner. Casals would play the suites for twelve years before performing themand making them his own. Siblin pursues the mysteries that haunt this music more than 250 years after its composers death: why did Bach compose the suites for the cello, then considered a lowly instrument? What happened to the original manuscript of the suites? The Cello Suites is a journey of discovery, fueled by the transcendent power of a musical masterpiece.