When is Johann Sebastian Bach not Johann Sebastian Bach? One might answer, when he is arranged to sound somewhat differently than he himself customarily would call for? For example we have this recording at hand, with celloist Amit Peled leading the Mount Vernon Virtuosi Cello Gang doing Bach arrangements that turn Bach's solo cello "Suite No 6" into a newly arranged version for four cellos entitled Bach 6 with 4 (CTM Classics).
It is an arrangement that revels in the extraordinarily melodic qualities of the Suite as written. What it does not do is turn it all into the sort of contrapuntal extravaganza that Bach might have fashioned had he been working in the four-part mode that the arrangement provides. It does have a little counterpoint, but mostly it is a thickening of the solo part. On listening you hear a marvelous extension of it all, not entirely Bachian in its new treatment, but wonderful music nonetheless. So of course we might welcome this as something rather excellent, wonderfully alive and wonderfully played. If it may not be according to Hoyle, so what? It is lovely! Sometimes it even sounds folksy, as almost a kind of village music, down-to-earth, lively and jaunty. And that is fun.
Peled talks about the project here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1J0tCgTGfY
Check this one out and it will bring a smile I suspect. Nicely done.
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