Tanya Tomkins @ LoC

Charles T. Downey, Cellist Tanya Tomkins plays Bach at the Library of Congress
Washington Post, April 30, 2012

J. S. Bach, Solo Cello Suites, T. Tomkins

It is not easy to give a distinctive performance of Bach’s suites for solo cello, something that makes those familiar pieces sound new. That is what baroque cellist Tanya Tomkins did Saturday afternoon in an insightful traversal of all of six suites over two concerts closing out the Library of Congress’s Bach festival. Tomkins, who had to cancel these concerts last season because of illness, came close to doing so again because of an allergy set off by the odor of painting in the building.

As she explained between suites, Tomkins played on a historical instrument fitted to 18th-century standards: higher strings made of gut, lower strings made of gut wrapped with metal, lower string tension (and tuning at A415), a lighter bow that danced across the strings. Specialization in baroque music, from her work as principal cellist in the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra and other ensembles, helped her interpret the cues in the score about interpretation. The preludes had an improvisatory character in cadenza-like sections, and the dances lilted with the sense of movement. The allemandes were noble and genteel, the courantes rippling and fleet, the sarabandes graceful but not too slow and the gigues a little rough and folksy. [Continue reading]

Tanya Tomkins, Baroque cello
J. S. Bach, Suites for solo cello
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Marianne Lipanovich, Cellist Tanya Tomkins: Suite Phase of Life (San Francisco Classical Voice, November 15, 2010)

Bach Cello Suites (Ionarts, May 26, 2010)