Prelude from J.S. Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 (from the Smoky Mountains)

I’ve spent decades trying to get this piece right. At some point, I found a way in: in the same way that a river begins far before we meet it, I imagine this music starting long before I play the first note; I just have to join it. Like the river, the music is always flowing, and like the river, it’s always changing. All I have to do is picture a river, feel its energy, get into its flow, and follow it.