Dr.Dk

Album of the Week

Here is music that in film and popular culture is associated with intellect but also manages to touch most people’s hearts. Music that every cellist attempts to master, but few actually record.

Henrik Dam Thomsen has been playing the suites since he was 10 years old, both as practice therapy and in concerts. During the pandemic, he had more time to immerse himself in the music, and that’s when the idea to record all six suites arose.

There is only one way to play the suites, and that is the cellist’s own way. Henrik Dam Thomsen has found his. Listen here in the Wednesday edition of Album of the Week to the entire first suite. All five dances and the famous prelude in G minor.

Carsten Wolf Andersen - Source

The Whole Note

Editor’s Corner

Henrik Dam Thomsen, principal cellist of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra since 2000, has just released his well considered version of J. S. Bach – Six Suites for Cello Solo on Our Recordings, with an excellent introductory essay by Jens Cornelius which incorporates historical information about Bach and the suites and includes extensive quotes from the performer and a description of the recording venue (Garnisons Kirke, Copenhagen).

Thomsen says of his own personal journey to this point, “I have just turned 50, and for 40 of those years I have studied the suites. So a long musical journey underlies the way in which I play them today. As a cellist one goes through various phases with regard to the suites. When young, one is strongly influenced by one’s teachers. This is followed by a phase where one makes the music one’s own and attempts to discover what means something special for oneself. And in my case this has already been a very long period. I have played Bach at numerous concerts over the years, and at the same time the suites have been my daily practicing therapy.”

He goes on to talk about the choices one has to make today in considering historical instruments and performance practices and how this has influenced him. His ultimate decision was to use his usual instrument – a 1680 Francesco Ruggieri built five years before Bach was born – while eschewing gut strings for modern ones and using a conventional bow. He also chooses to play the final suite on this instrument, despite it having been conceived for a five-string cello.

The result is a warm, confident, at times exuberant and a very welcome addition to the discography. I’ll leave the last words to Thomsen: “Today, Bach is like some huge tree, and the interpretations of his music are like a million leaves on that tree. To record Bach’s music is a profoundly personal thing, but when I come with an attempt at an interpretation, all I do is add just one more leaf to that huge tree which is Bach.” 

David Olds - Source

Gramophone

Editor’s Choice 

There’s arguably no such thing as a non-impactful opening to a Bach Solo Cello Suites recording. That said, the presence of these readings from Danish National Symphony Orchestra solo cellist Henrik Dam Thomsen is significant. It helps that this former pupil of William Pleeth and János Starker has stuck to his own modern-set-up 1680 Ruggieri – a magnificent instrument – strung with his usual modern strings, tuned to modern 442Hz, and played with his usual conventional bow; in simple terms of power and volume he inevitably occupies a different plane from anyone going authentically Baroque with any or all of their tools.

Another major – really major – contributing factor is the tremendous warmth and bloom, and upper-register precision, afforded by Copenhagen’s Garnisons Kirke with its unusual combination of huge, galleried, two-level, cathedral-size Baroque interior and a wooden floor. But there’s also Thomsen’s playing, because the overwhelming impression is of a cellist playing as comes naturally, with his very personal, timeless (albeit period-aware) response to the music: long-lined, melodious expressivity; gentle vibrato and portamento touches; and delicate, constantly varying embellishments which he won’t keep for the repeat if the mood takes him early (so he’s right in there in bar 5 of Suite No 1’s Prelude, tucking in a softly crystalline addition). Also, of a cellist alive to this music’s dance and folk elements, and the possibilities of bringing its own conversation into further conversation with this big-personality church acoustic.

Thomsen recently turned 50, and 40 of those years have been spent playing the Suites. In the recording notes, he describes how the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 22 prompted newly intensive exploration of the set, then performing them as a whole, and in turn gaining a clearer picture of their sequence and steady accumulation in gravity, length and experimentalism. Certainly he brings out this progression, from the quiet purity of his Suite No 1 to the dark profundity of the Fifth – and oh my, how this church acoustic serves the deep, black, organ rumble of his bottom C at the outset of the Fifth’s Prelude. The Sixth Prelude then sees him draw special magic from the acoustic, first with his pronounced forte/piano echo effects (the score’s only dynamic markings), and later his stroking of its high tenor-clef notes to produce a meltingly beautiful, sweetly amber chime (listen onwards from 3’00”). Inevitably, the bloom spins a gorgeous halo too around slow movements, such as his expressive, slow-spun Second Suite Sarabande.

Everywhere there is the sense of dance: that same Suite’s pair of Menuets are thoroughly danceable with their crisp beat and gently detached articulation; and I love the way the second’s trills flutter with seductive cut-glass definition. The Fourth’s Sarabande progresses with a steady-pulsed, nobly gliding lilt, this pulse and the sharp spring of its dotted figures gradually driving its gathering emotional weight.

For a coloristic twist, try after the double bar, first time around, in Suite No 5’s Gigue, where he drops its bar 55 trill, then trills that of the following bar using such a narrow interval that the weirdly fabulous effect is of a nasal wiggle. Or for something very beautiful, listen to the thoroughly Arcadian hurdy-gurdy in Suite No 6’s second Gavotte with its smoothly lilting rise and fall.

It’s a tough field of competition for this repertoire, but this is distinctive and exceptionally finely done.

Charlotte Gardner - Source

Information

The 50-year-old cellist Henrik Dam Thomsen has spent forty years exploring Bach’s Cello Suites. In 2024, the time was ripe to record an album. It has become a masterpiece in sound quality and musical understanding.

The remarkable thing about Henrik Dam Thomsen’s approach is the balance between the fairly mobile tempo, the discreetly singing tone, and an unshakable calm. The cello sound is close to the human voice. It resonates with a particular weight in our internal communication lines. This is exceptionally clear in this fine recording from the Copenhagen church.

Valdemar Lønsted - Source

Klassik Heute (Classics Today) 10 out of 5

Thomsen’s most masterful performance, however, is in the sixth suite, which pushes the limits of playability on a four-stringed instrument. Delivering it so smoothly and elegantly, without any pressure, even into the highest octave, is undoubtedly a demonstration of the highest skill. He doesn’t need to show off that something extremely difficult is coming up. He simply makes music out of it, no matter how many fits of rage and despair it may have cost him to get there.

In general, his interpretation is characterized by fluid tempos and a genuine sense of dance. When you find yourself tapping along to a gavotte or bourrée, you know that this cellist is not just performing character pieces but is well-informed about Baroque dances.

Bravo!

Thomas Baack - Source