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Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello are well-known and beloved works that are central to the repertoire of any cellist or violist. However, they are also works fraught with uncertainties, ranging from the circumstances of their composition to performance practices. It is not known when, why or for whom the suites were composed, or even for exactly which instrument they were intended. Helen Callus plays from the critical edition prepared for Peters by Simon Rowland-Jones, but has made her own decisions about articulations, dynamics and ornamentation based on the original sources. She plays the Fifth Suite with the scordatura tuning requested by Bach, tuning her top string down from A to G (this suite can be played with a normally-tuned instrument, but at the expense of leaving some notes out of Bach’s chords and of different timbres for some notes). Callus plays the Sixth Suite in G major, rather than Bach’s D major. Although this involves changing Bach’s key, it also means that the viola version is closer in tessitura to Bach’s original than it would be in D major (a fourth higher rather than an octave), and it allows for more of Bach’s effects with open strings to be preserved.