Bach's G major prelude has captivated cellists and music lovers for years. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein deconstructs it. Bach's six cello suites are considered a rite of passage for cellists. They're masterpieces of classical music, and the prelude in G major — the first movement of the suites — is perhaps the best example of Bach's power as a composer. In it, he's able to achieve rich and complex harmonic movements with just a four-stringed instrument, while using the very basic tenets of music composition. Those basic tenets are what Alisa Weilerstein, a renowned cellist and McArthur fellow, helps us understand. A previous version of this video mislabeled a C sharp as a C natural. We also removed a simplified chord visual that mislabeled a C natural as a C sharp. Alisa's discography: https://alisaweilerstein.com/discography/ Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Further reading: https://costanzabach.stanford.edu/commentary https://theconversation.com/decoding-the-music-masterpieces-bachs-six-solo-cello-suites-83797 http://songexploder.net/yo-yo-ma The score used in the video was from Bärenreiter: https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/ Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com/. Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H