When I saw Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript of J.S. Bach's Cello Suites, I noticed a strange half-bar in its Gigue of the 1st suite:
"What is this? I have never seen such half-bar in any published scores!"
Then I played the Gigue with the half-bar with my cello. I understood that it was true, J.S. Bach himself had written it because it enriched Gigue and entire 1st suite. Since then, I have lost the trust to any published scores of Cello Suites and I have decided to make my own edition.
I omitted all slurs except "ties" because it is too difficult to determine them. First of all I wanted to concentrate on the problem of notes. But after finished this "without slurs" work, I will begin "with slurs" edition.
I believe you know very well that J.S. Bach's own manuscripts have been lost and we have four copies by others, those are by Johann Peter Kellner (1726), by Anna Magdalena Bach (1727 - 1731) and two copies by anonymous copyists (Source C and Source D / second half of the 18th century).
See also: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Ref/BWV1007-1012-Ref.pdf
It is obvious that Sources C and D are the descendants of Anna Magdalena's manuscript because they have many common errors which are caused by Anna Magdalena (I found 18 places as shown below).
But curiously, we find some similarities between Kellner and Sources C and D, however we cannot find any errors in Sources C and D which are caused by Kellner. How can we explain it?
I think there was another manuscript (Source I) which was copied from Bach's composing score and it influenced Sources C and D through Source G (the matrix of Sources C and D). I suppose the relationship among the sources as shown below.
From Kellner's copy, Sarabande and Gigue (except its first 9 bars) of the 5th suite are lacking. Because Kellner copied from Bach's composing score, not from clean copy. But it is very interesting because it means that Bach wrote this peculiar Sarabande last of all.
03,01,2013 (revised on 29,08,2014) Shin-Itchiro YOKOYAMA
