Hopkinson Smith - Bach: Suites Nos. 1, 2, 3 (2013) Hi-Res

Hopkinson Smith’s complete recording of JS Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin as transcribed by Smith for 13-course Baroque lute (7/00) has long been a particular favourite of mine. Finally the New York-born lutenist, vihuelist and Baroque guitarist tackles Bach’s six Cello Suites, and in this first volume we hear an increased maturity of thought allied to the introspection that was always a hallmark of Smith’s playing.
As Smith himself points out, there are numerous ‘beautiful renditions of these works’ currently available as performed on the Baroque lute and the Italian/French theorbo/chitaronne. Again, among my favourites are Nigel North’s brilliant recordings, on lute, from the mid-1990s, now available as a box-set together with transcriptions of the Sonatas and Partitas. Smith, however, prefers to use an even larger, longer-stringed instrument made after one invented by Bach’s great contemporary and friend, the lutenist and composer Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750) and which he calls the ‘German’ theorbo.
Bach’s own transcription for lute, or more properly Lautenwerk (lute-harpsichord), of the Fifth Cello Suite stands as, if not a justification for such adaptations, then certainly an unsurpassable exemplum. Thus Smith fills out harmonies here, adds a bass-line there, or completes a polyphonic texture which was merely suggested in the original.
Playing a German theorbo by Joël van Lennep, Smith generally takes a leisurely approach to tempo. One is thus able to savour Bach’s writing, Smith’s extrapolations and the wine-dark tone of the instrument. In the allemandes especially, which seem to inhabit that penumbra between the prelude and the dance, Smith is at his searchingly expressive best; but even in the quicker dances he offers a melancholic ambivalence that is wholly satisfying.