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Bach: The Cello Suites - Recomposed by Peter Gregson

Two immediate personal reactions upon listening to the piece, neither of which should be taken as criticism. At first I was reminded of when the needle of a record player used to get stuck on the same groove and, unable to advance, endlessly repeated the same snippet. My second reaction came later on, when it occurred to me that the piece seemed to be taking the idea of granular synthesis and metaphorically applying it to the opening bar of the original cello suite.
 
While (or maybe because?) I love the original cello suites, this is not my cup of tea. In the prelude, Peter Gregson uses the opening figure as ostinato figure. He then sets some easy-listening chords over it, and done. It is of course a tempting (if uninspired) idea. But it totally goes against the nature of the original prelude. That opening figure is never meant to be a pattern, and it doesn't work well as one. As the end of the prelude makes clear, the interest of this figures lies in its inherent polyphony. Something Bach uses masterfully in his prelude. And something Mr. Gregson completely ignores by degrading it to a mere pattern.

I haven't listened to the other pieces extensively yet. Browsing through them I haven't heard anything that caught my ear. In fact, Mr. Gregson seems to reproduce the procedure of the prelude 1 in the Courante from the second suite without change. It all sounds like civilized routine to me. I don't hear new ideas, and I don't hear anything that would show that a deeper study of the original has taken place.

Compare it to Max Richter's fantastic 'Vivaldi recomposed'. Max Richter uses some of the same techniques as Peter Gregson (Gregson seems to have been inspired by Richter's approach to recomposition, actually). But he uses what are actually pattern's in Vivaldi's music, and repurposes them to create something new. In a way he shows us that techniques of minimal music are present in Vivaldi's music too, if in a completely different way. I find that much more interesting and succesful than Gregson's recomposition.

Max Richter, 'Vivaldi recomposed':

 
There's something insincere/inauthentic about this whole "recomposed" trend. Some developer (probably the British one 😉) should just take the opening bars of 40 popular baroque pieces, sample them, and then call it a library for "recomposing." ....that'll fatigue everyone to it real quick.

...or worse, it becomes the new trailer music trend 😭.
 
liquidlino said:
Been listening to this whilst working from home today, it's fantastic. And a reminder of what sample libraries will likely never be able to achieve, incredible solo cello work on this, and a lovely recording.
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I recorded and mixed this! Glad (some) people are still enjoying it, it was undertaken in full awareness that meddling with the masters will always provoke some controversy.

We mixed the atmos version last year, think it should be out there on Apple Music by now.
 
Scoremixer said:
I recorded and mixed this! Glad (some) people are still enjoying it, it was undertaken in full awareness that meddling with the masters will always provoke some controversy.

We mixed the atmos version last year, think it should be out there on Apple Music by now.
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Wow! And just read your air studios page, and there it is right there. Such a small world. I'm enjoying it a lot! Thanks for making it!
 
Scoremixer said:
Thanks for listening! Peter did all the hard work though, it was quite an undertaking.
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Any insights to the process you care to share? How many players, how long recording took, mixing? Any interesting problems that needed solving?

I notice it doesn't have the massive room sound of the main hall, where was it recorded?
 
liquidlino said:
Any insights to the process you care to share? How many players, how long recording took, mixing? Any interesting problems that needed solving?

I notice it doesn't have the massive room sound of the main hall, where was it recorded?
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Ha, it was most definitely recorded in the main hall at AIR, making full use of all the space!

There's a few little making of clips on Youtube:





A 5 cello ensemble was the main backing, we recorded them in a day for the whole record. They were mainly spread out in the upper galleries for ultimate room sound, although of course there's a lot of different mic perspectives at different points in the record. We did a shorter session with them on the floor in a more typical ensemble layout for a few of the tighter pieces.

All the synths of the record were re-amped into the room and captured with the room mics to give the whole thing more cohesiveness, 1.6 and 5.1 are pretty good examples of that.

We overdubbed the solo cello last, with Peter sitting in the middle of the room. I can't remember exactly how long that took but something in the region of 3-4 days.

The edit and mix for the whole record was perhaps 9 days... It was a lot to get through, the whole things clocks in at just under 2 hours! I think the main part of the puzzle for me was finding the right room/ambience perspective on each piece - it varies quite a lot depending on what's going on, but hopefully never sounds contrived or distracting.
 
Replying to my own thread, which is maybe bad form. But wanted to say, I'm still listening to this album regularly, it's fantastic. On the train now on the way into work in Sydney,and it's just the perfect music for the moment. Epic views of Sydney and opera house and harbour coming up soon as I go over the harbour bridge!
 
Of note, if you are into the Cello Suites, is a reissue of all of Bach's cello works done by Pablo Casals including works of Beethoven, Brahms, etc. that was just released by Warner.
 
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The Bach Cello ostinato thing is total drivel. If people want to write slop like that - fine, but don’t lean on masterworks to lend credibility.
 
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