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list price: $10.99
edition:eBook
category: Music
published: Mar 2009
ISBN:9780887848797
publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc

The Cello Suites

J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece

by Eric Siblin

tagged: history & criticism, composers & musicians, germany
Description

One autumn evening, shortly after ending a ten-year stint as a pop-music columnist for the Montreal Gazette, Eric Siblin attended a concert at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music. There, something unlikely happened: he fell in love with a piece of classical music -- Bach's cello suites. Part biography, part music history, and part literary mystery, The Cello Suites weaves together three dramatic stories: The first features Johann Sebastian Bach and the missing manuscript of his suites from the eighteenth century; the second is that of Pablo Casals and his incredible discovery of the manuscript in Spain in the early twentieth century; and the third is Eric Siblin's own infatuation with the suites in the twenty-first century.

This love affair leads Siblin to the back streets of Barcelona, a Belgian mansion, and a bombed out German palace; to interviews with cellists Mischa Maisky, Anner Bylsma, and Pieter Wispelwey; to archives, festivals, conferences, and cemeteries; and even to cello lessons -- all in pursuit of answers to the mysteries that continue to haunt this piece of music more than 250 years after its composer's death.

The Cello Suites is an incomparable, beautifully written, true-life journey of passion, imagination, and discovery, fuelled by the transcendent power of a musical masterpiece.

About the Author
Eric Siblin is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and author. He lives in Montreal, Quebec. Visit Eric Siblin's website: http://ericsiblin.com
Awards
  • Short-listed, British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
  • Short-listed, Writers' Trust of Canada Non-Fiction Prize
  • Short-listed, Governor General's Award: Nonfiction
  • Winner, QWF McAuslan First Book Prize
  • Winner, Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction

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