In the Quest for Variety: Analysis of Performances of the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite no. 4, BWV 1011

Variety in music performance has been deemed a natural necessity on the part of practitioners [Godlovitch, 1988; Margulis, 2014; Smith, 1993]. In fact, a strive for variety has been noticed both in terms of performative patterns that vary throughout a given interpretation [Rink, Spiro, and Gold 2011] and across the multiple performances of a given piece [Fabian 2015; Fabian and Ornoy 2009; Llorens 2018; 2021b; Ornoy 2008]. However, in most studies its discussion has been relegated to tangential commentaries, and very rarely has it been the focus of research. To fill this lacuna, this article investigates the interpretive techniques by which eighteen cellists create a sense of variety in a highly regular musical context: the Prelude from J. S. Bach’s Suite for cello solo no. 4 in E flat major. The analysis addresses three main issues in each recording: a) the varying dura- tional proportions between the various notes within each bar and the patterns that emerge from it; b) the importance of dynamics in supporting, compensating, or even overruling the effect of a); and c) the relatively unstable approaches to the intonation of specific intervals in the Prelude. Ultimately, this research contributes new case studies to the theorisation of variety in the context of pseudo-perpetual motion music, unequivocally positing performance as a critical element in music theory.