So this piece is hard as hell because of all the trills, and Casals even adds more than are included in my guitar sheet music, but oh well lets go for it. Trills are really damn hard because to do one you usually have to: hold down one string, then "gently" close the note directly above it, and then "swiftly" pull off the string at an angle so it activates the note below - and then do it a second time really fast. The Baroque trill is always 2 pulls, so it sounds like "Dee da dee da". Its even harder when the other two LH fingers are holding down two other strings, so you have 3 fingers firmly closing 3 notes whilst your last finger (usually the wimpy pinky dammit) has to do this gentle / swift thing! It makes your forearm burn! I do trill warm ups every day now, and I'd honestly rather do bicep curls than trills because your whole arm becomes fatigued, but I'm definitely stronger compared to a few weeks ago. Its schizophrenic because the quality of a trill is supposed to be light and ornamental but the execution actually requires a lot of strength in the LH - if you squeeze too hard, you might hit the neighboring strings on accident and that really screws up the whole momentum of the piece.
So Pablo Casals was a Spanish cellist who really is the main reason Bach's Cello Suites are famous today. There are so many versions that I've heard on YouTube, but I went with Casals again because his version is so fast and soo...under stress! The other versions are usually slower and...pretentious sounding? ...at least compared to Pablo Casals. This could be because the Allemande is originally a German dance that reached its popular height during the 17th century and is almost always the 2nd movement of a dance suite. Historians use words like "serious" and "grave" to describe both the music and the dance, so I guess that could result in a slower tempo in hopes of triggering emotions like solemnity, heaviness, and just again making a listener sit thru the tired sentiment of profound loftiness that classical music should have. But what the hell it used to be a dance, and I like Casals' version best.
Before really practicing this one I used to hate repeats because Arrrgh you just made it to the finish line and now you have to go all the way back to the beginning and risk screwing something up? Plus the 2nd time thru is always what people remember because it pretty much replaces what might have been a perfect A+! But now I like repeats a lot because rehearsing this one was so difficult and there was always something that just wasn't nailed completely, and the repeat becomes your second chance. It isn't always better the second time, but that chance at redemption is a funny kind of motivation where you're distracted in real time after you've made a mistake. For a few seconds your mind is preoccupied with both the the recent past and fast approaching future and you're not at all thinking about the present.
Ishida