Cellist Inbal Megiddo. Photo: Supplied
Played without a break, they'd last for about two and half hours. But preparing to play them - that's a lifetime's work.
Wellington-based Inbal Megiddo has just released an album of all six of J S Bach's cello suites.
The suites are something of a musical mystery. We don't know who Bach wrote them for - it certainly wasn't himself, as the cello wasn't one of his instruments.
Couldn't play it, but he could write for it. Photo: Elias Gottlob Haussmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Regarded as one of the pinnacles of the instrument's repertoire, Megiddo almost had to record them twice.
She started before the Covid lockdown with Suites 1-3, until the pandemic forced a break.
When Megiddo returned to record 4-6, she found the sound of the new takes did not match with the first recordings.
Neither Megiddo nor her recording engineer Wayne Laird could work out why, or how to fix it, so she began the whole process again.
Despite the setback, Megiddo thinks redoing the first three suites led to a better final product.
Speaking to RNZ Concert about the album, Megiddo likens the six suites to six stages in life.
Bach begins with the fresh G major of Suite No 1, representing childhood. The troubled teen years are taken up by the D Minor 2nd Suite. The C major 3rd Suite is full of the confidence of a 20-year-old with everything to live for.
The busy years of parenting are captured in the E-flat major 4th suite. The C minor 5th represents old age, while the 6th and final suite ascends to heaven in the key of D.
You could say Megiddo's spent a lifetime getting ready to record them.
Inbal Megiddo, playing the cello as a child. Photo: Supplied / Inbal Megiddo
She first picked up a half-sized cello at the age of two. Her mother (a violinist) had taken her to a music shop, and she refused to leave without it.
The daughter of a diplomat, Megiddo lived in many places around the world before moving to Wellington to take up a job at the New Zealand School of Music, where she is now the Associate Professor in Cello.
And despite having achieved the cellist's equivalent of climbing Mount Everest, she's not ruling out recording them again.
"There's still time for an ascent of K2."
