Bach Cello Suite No.1 Courante on Moog Synthesizer
Playing the Courante from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 on the Moog Minimoog Voyager Old School. Most people know about the Prelude which is quite famous, but the Courante is equally beautiful in my opinion. The cello suites are a beautiful goldmine of haunting melodies hidden behind a deceptively simple shell. They were intended for solo cello but I find that monophonic synthesizers lend themselves well to this kind of music too.
The cello is capable of playing multiple notes simultaneously and this piece does have some octave intervals from time to time, so you'll notice in some cases I play a quick octave 2-note arpeggio to mimic this effect.
I decided to take a bit of an exaggerated approach when it comes to the synthesizer patch, and employ heavy use of filter cutoff modulation via the mod wheel as well as vibrato via aftertouch. The result it probably a little too "funky" but I wanted to try something different than my Aria video in which I took a bit of a safe vanilla route timbre-wise. The reverb is ValhallaDSP Room (added in post). The performance is not perfect, and it took many takes, but I decided to post it regardless with its flaws intact in hopes that it makes it a bit more human than were it played by a MIDI sequencer. In either case, I hope you enjoy it.
If you want to hear some good cello versions, some of my favourite performers are Mischa Maisky, Pablo Casals and Pieter Wispelwey. But there are obviously many others and interpretations are usually a matter of personal preference so definitely listen to a lot of different ones until you find the one that resonates with you.
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