Lost transcription – arrangement of J.S. Bach's cello suites for double bass by Tadeusz Pelczar

00:00 Prelude
06:08 Allemande
10:55 Courante
15:14 Sarabande
20:25 Bourree I, II
26:13 Gigue

Few people know that in Poland in the 1970s, a collection of transcriptions of cello suites by J.S. Bach for double bass was created, being unique on a global scale. For many years they had been developed by Tadeusz Pelczar, the first double bass player of the National Philharmonic and a longtime professor at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. The suites were published in 1971 by the PWM Edition (Polish: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne) and have been reissued twice.
Despite the fact the material has been performed by students of Polish universities, it has not been comprehensively recorded and widely popularized in the world. Only fragmentary recordings of the arrangement can be found online, and the knowledge of Tadeusz Pelczar and his legacy is practically nonexistent. Perhaps it was due to Poland's political isolation taking place until the fall of communism, or the achievements could have been overshadowed by the then developing global trend of playing early music as close to the original as possible. When being played on the contemporary double bass, Bach’s pieces were solely performed from arrangements truthful to urtext editions, even if they did not use the scale and sonic potential of a modern instrument.
While developing cello suites for double bass, Tadeusz Pelczar adopted a different tactic – he wanted to extract the fullness of the proper sound of the modern instrument. It was for this purpose that he decided to develop only five of the six suites and omitted the bourrée from the fifth and the prelude from the third suite. He also made controversial decisions to change the key of the suites, and even the key of individual parts within each piece. Regardless of how we view such ideas today, the collection of transcriptions is deeply thoughtout, coherent, technically demanding and, above all, masterful in emphasizing the values of the contemporary double bass. It is a pity that such an achievement has been almost forgotten. Yet, with my project, I want to introduce you to this amazing transcription. By 2022, I will have published my interpretation of the entire transcription of J.S. Bach in the arrangement of Tadeusz Pelczar on my YT channel.
Enjoy,

Tomasz Januchta

Funded within the scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
Zrealizowano w ramach stypendium Ministra Kultury, Dziedzictwa Narodowego i Sportu



Partners:

Warsaw Philharmonic
PWM Edition (Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne)
Henryk Wieniawski Music Society in Poznań
City of Poznan
Warsaw Zoological Garden
Pracownia Wschodnia

Cinematographer and editor: Kuba Kossak
Sound engineer: Antoni Grzymała

https://tadeuszpelczar.com.pl/


Sarabande a bit of sensation!

The building whose historic interiors serve as my recording place for Bach’s Suite No. 4 has a rich history. It was erected in the years 18961897 as the seat of the Discount Bank in Warsaw. The neorenaissance tenement house survived World War II, and the interiors were later renovated. The main hall with an enormous glass roof, full of splendour and accessed by the marble stairs, once housed the cash registers; you can see the wooden casing of their windows behind my back in the video. They are currently closed, as the building is home to the Warsaw branch of the Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM). The PWM archives contain tens of thousands of manuscripts and first editions of music pieces used by various musicians. This publishing house also issues the periodical Ruch Muzyczny, distinguished in the field of classical music.
And now for a bit of sensation! In 1926, the bank's underground vault became a target of a bold breakin through a hollow, severaldozenmetre long tunnel; the soil from the tunnel was taken out by the burglars through a specially constructed adit. The creative thieves managed to breach the meterthick concrete floor of the vault yet failed to cut open the metal door to the treasure safe.
Today's treasure carefully stored in the PWM library are pieces of sheet music, a physical medium for countless great musical concepts. Without the physical survival of the manuscripts and scores, we wouldn’t be able to cope with musical ideas. And yet our performances, intangible in themselves, are the only possible ‘transmitters’ and images of spirituality.
Professor Tadeusz Pelczar published all his works in the PWM, including the transcriptions of J.S. Bach’s cello Suites for double bass. There is a chance that my project will contribute to a quick reedition of this forgotten treasure. Fingers crossed!

T.J.

* while writing this text I used the book An Illustrated Atlas of Śródmieście Północne Architecture by Ewa Ziajkowska and Michał Kempiński and geotekst.pl.

Translation Dagmara Łata