Bach's Cello Suites on Marimba - Pius Cheung
YouTube this past week brought me a glimpse to the artistry of Pius Cheung, a marimba player I’d encountered before. The music was from Bach and I found his release from December 2020, presumably playing Yamaha instruments (as the video can cover reveal). I’m no marimba expert, but I’ve always been a fan of the sound, especially some of the larger sub-bass models by Malletech.
I’d reviewed albums by Kuniko in the past but I decided to audition Cheung’s album featuring Bach’s cello works. [The musician is a professor at the University of Oregon](Biography | PIUS CHEUNG MUSIC and is also a composer specializing in percussion.
The acoustical signature of the album is sympathetically warm but there isn’t a “concert hall” sound to the reverb; instead I feel as if I might be standing where Cheung is, or close by, with the sounds occasionally of breathing or clothing moving audible. My audition was with headphones. While the sound of a marimba on stage is great, I think I prefer this setup for recordings, at least with solo repertoire. The attacks of each of the notes were far more palpable. Which, of course, I think is important in this music: on the cello, the player divides their sound between attacked notes that typically start phrases, and legato bowing. The articulation of a percussionist, if they’re to approximate the variation on a cello, has to be deliberate with their articulation. In short, I much enjoyed the way this album was captured and the timbre of the instrument.
I chose my favorite suite first, no. 2, BWV 1008. Cheung is willing to adopt an elastic sense of time, perhaps not as elastic as I’d take things myself, but probably just enough that he won’t offend anyone who covets their collection of metronomes. The Courante presents the first surprise, he adopts phrasing that maybe for me is atypical, at least to the cellists I oft listen. It certainly works and his energy that comes out in this dance is nice, without going to any extremes. He coaxes from the instrument a delicious variation in timbres, especially in the lower range. The way the movement ends would be potentially too slow on a cello, but on his marimba, it seems just about perfect.
The sarabande could be a challenge with his adopted tempo, with silences falling in between the cracks of the singing line. My familiarity with this movement allows me to carry Bach’s melodic line in my head without issue, however for those unfamiliar? The tempo might stretch the piece to the point of exposing it to the light of transparency. Here I felt a tempo appropriate for the cello didn’t quite work for marimba.
The menuetts and gigue are fantastically buoyant. I am confident the gigue was played with a different pair of mallets. Their hardness change the character of the suite, which is a little jarring. Yet, the instrument almost comes alive with the harder sticks. The movement by itself is in want of nothing else.
My next listen went to the quiet, private sound of the sixth suite, starting with the hallowed gavottes. For me there’s a quality to this pair of movements that reveals human frailty and the delicateness of light in the guise of something profoundly sad. It’s an odd take, I think, as we hear it here, without the intensity, say, on a 5-stringed cello within the cello’s higher gamut. This reading is clean and fresh.
The concluding gigue has Cheung banging out one of his instrument’s profoundly low notes with particular strength. The effect is magnificent, if perhaps unnecessary, but why not? Cheung’s ability in this piece joins the higher and lower notes together in tight phrasing that is more of a challenge for a cellist.
The hard sticks come out for suite no. 5’s (BWV 1011) Courante. The way he consistently (and brusquely) plays the double stops is affective. There’s just enough reverb in his space to allow Bach’s harmonies to sing with what tones linger.
The pair of Bourées from suite no. 3 (BWV 1009) feels polite. The first, in C major, always makes me think of Bach at his most happy. Instead of playing the minor shadow potentially differently, Cheung plays them pretty consistently, letting Bach’s sequence of notes and change in mode speak for itself without interference from the player. The suite’s concluding gigue is a joyous piece, which I almost hoped went faster, but in the context of the whole movement, Cheung’s tempo tightens my focus to see he chose an ideal tempo for allowing the marimba to sing without getting muddy with the sequence of notes from low and high. Before the dance’s end, he does a superb job of varying dynamics in the call/response phrases. He also barks out the lowest note in the phrase with a massively hard hit. Instead of being gross, the effect on me each time was a consistent smile.
The opening of the six suites, with the prelude from suite no. 1 (BWV 1007) is familiar but the phrasing is necessarily different, I think, with it played on marimba. I am far more aware of the adulation of notes in each grouping and what normally gets played very smoothly with legato phrasing here is something different, yet no less profound. Cheung’s consistency among notes here with articulation and stick pressure is well done. In his hands, this opening prelude became a different piece.
Bach’s six suites for solo cello are profound music, and like much of Bach, translates well onto different instruments, in arrangements, and the like. This album is made by a gifted percussionist who presents us Bach’s suites in a wrapper we’ll all well recognize. He’s unapologetic in the dances where a cello might do something different, but in the end I think that’s the smart way to play things.
Cheung never inserts himself too deeply into the interpretations in pursuit of doing things extra-personally; instead in but a few pops of notes from the marimba’s lower register, he respectfully presents Bach’s music, as naked as it can be on a marimba. I’d imagine this album will be a reference for any young percussionist in pursuit of learning one or more of these suites on marimba. Warmly recommended.
