Music for a While #33: ‘Great are companions such as these’

That is a line from a hymn. Jay says it must apply to Bach’s Cello Suites, which players of that instrument get to live with all life long — through good times and (maybe most important) bad. Of course, all of the pieces on this program may be called “great companions”: from the pens of composers famous and obscure. An appetizing, companionable episode. Bach, Allegro assai, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 Bach-Rachmaninoff, Preludio, Violin Partita in E major Tchaikovsky-Wild, Pas de quatre, “Swan Lake” Bach, Sarabande, Cello Suite in C minor Mancini, “Quanto dolce è quell’ardore” Dalza, “Calata ala spagnola” Monteverdi, “Quel sguardo sdegnosetto” Price, F., “Down a Southern Lane” Trad., arr. F. Price, “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”