Christopher Suckling | Violoncello

Gabrieli 'cellist, Christopher Suckling, tells how he got into period performance practice and what it's like working with Paul McCreesh ('Maestro'), and Gabrieli. As we learn below, in a live performance, you have to be prepared for anything...

Some years ago, answering a portentous knocking at the door with the clock long past some ungodly hour, I was faced by a bearded apparition which proceeded to ask me to play a Bach cantata in about eight hours time. Too tired to do anything but agree, I stumbled into St. Catharine's Chapel, Cambridge and upon Cantata 202 with its infamous continuo aria "Phöbus eilt". Seventeen years later and an abrupt career change from scientist to musician, this awkward collection of semiquavers still induces the odd bit of panic practice.

During my most recent attempt, it occurred to me that I should add this passage to a growing list of suspects implicating a far wider use of a five string cello than we might currently allow for. In fact, it is a direct result of playing with Gabrieli and Maestro's comments ("I quite like a few chords...") that I now find myself fitting doctoral research around conducting and the cello.

Indeed, one of the joys of working with Gabrieli in recent years is the constant probing by string players to discover new sounds and techniques. Not only has this created a unique timbre and style of playing, but it also demands a wonderful physical interaction between player and instrument, something I find to be a most rewarding aspect of playing on thick gut strings. The tactility of performance is a huge part of my attraction to music and Gabrieli provides countless such experiences. To sit directly in front of two sopranos as a Monteverdian suspension resolves is just as exciting as the emotional exhaustion I feel after three hours of Theodora.

Some Gabrieli concerts have been, of course, equally memorable if not entirely for musical reasons... Early in my career, I was about three quarters of the way through an epic tour that took in the length and breadth of Norway before finally circumnavigating Holland, calling on this particular night in Groenigen. Amongst the subscribers at the hall was a very fine black labrador who assisted one of the patrons. It appeared to enjoy Part 1 of Acis and Galatea a great deal, being most friendly when approached by members of Gabrieli during the interval. But when the giant Polyphemus, took the stage at the beginning of Part 2, such was the impact of his singing that the dog, fearing for the life of Galatea, made gallant, if noisy, attempts to save her. Whilst Cerberus himself would not have been enough to deter Polyphemus from his quarry, a mere labrador was more than enough for the rest of Gabrieli who quenched Polyphemus' desires with tears of hysteria as the performance collapsed around them.