On Cellistical Exertions - Part 1

So tonight I am listening to Bach's Cello Suite #1 in G major, performed by a very famous cellist named Mstislav Rostropovich (yes, that's how it's spelled on my CD).

I wish I could say I am listening to this because of my vast cultural sophistication, but I can not. There are two reasons why I am listening to this, and I will share those reasons with you now.

In the first place, my wife is right now watching the season premiere of Desperate Housewives and I am trying to read and this music works pretty well to block out the television noise (headphones). And in the second place, there was a car commercial or a movie preview that used the first movement of this suite as background music and ever since then I always wondered what it was until a friend of mine who plays the cello told me and I bought these discs.

But none of that is the reason I'm writing this note. The reason I'm writing this note is because, to my interest (and amusement), I am pretty sure you can quite clearly hear Mstislav breathing during short breaks in the music during the second and third movements on this recording.



The notes do move along at a pretty good clip, and the act of extracting music from a cello does involve more than a little bit of physical exertion (what with all the sawing back and forth of the bow across the strings), so I guess it's only natural that the demanding parts would leave the performer breathless (or at least needing to breathe vigorously enough for the microphone to pick up the sound of the inhalation).

I approve of the sound of the breathing on this CD.