Bach Cello Suites: Chords and Double Stops

Rather than lyrical, vocal, melodic music played up and down one string, Bach’s unaccompanied string music tends to be more “harmonic”. On this page we will look at the Cello Suites from the point of view of their use of chords and double stops, but apart from these “official” chords and doublestops, there are enormous numbers of arpeggio intervals that can be played across the strings and that could be considered as “broken double stops” (see Bach: Bowings and Articulations and Doublestops).

The following tables compare the frequency and density of doublestops and chords in the different movements of the Bach Cello Suites:

We can see from the above table that the Suites become progressively richer in chordal writing. This progression is not smooth however: Suite II is much more chordal than any of the other first four suites, and the 5th and 6th suites are suddenly twice as chordal as even the 2nd suite. In fact each of the last two suites has more chords and double stops than suites 1, 3 and 4 combined.

Let’s now look to see which individual movements have not just the greatest number of chords and double stops, but also the highest density of them:

If we want to practice our chordal reading and playing (see Doublestops and Left Hand String Crossings), we can see here which movements to practice.

One final table, shows the gradual increase in frequency of the use of chordal writing in the Sarabandes (with the notable exception of the Fifth Suite).