Bach: Cello Suites, Volume 2

Advantages: to add great music in to your collection
Disadvantages: None

...Steven Isserlis is an outstanding cellist. When you listen his playing alive, which I did, you can see how he captures you with his playing. I am a professional viola player for twenty years. I have listened many recordings of Bach cello suites from Rostropovich to Peter Bruns. Isserlis plays the suits in a way that you can find something different in his interpretation. Specially the 6th suit. That suit is very difficult to play actually. You should listen and hear it yourself how it flows. I have to also add the price is actually not that expensive. Because you are going to have the six suits which are usually come in two cds and plus interesting piece again by Bach , Cant del Ocells, ( Song of the Birds'). I highly recommend the cd who are interested in solo cello music, Bach or classical music.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Brilliant, stirring, excitingly unpredictable, fresh performance; "genius" is not hyperbole in Argerich's case.
Disadvantages: Reflecting its LP origins, the CD lasts only 50' 16"!

...statement to the next, even within the very same phrase. You can’t help but give up and surrender completely to the emotional pull and richness of the music. Her control of the keyboard is amazing. Following the emphatic introductory chords in the Grave.Adagio of the Partita’s Sinfonia, listen as Martha drops the volume precipitously, beginning the Andante in a whisper, her notes now light and perfectly balanced. The Sinfonia (Partita) and the Allemandes (Partita and English Suite) mesmerize in they way they gently wash over you like liquid waves. In contrast, she attacks the English Suite Bourées with a relish and vitality that’s positively infectious. She commands your full attention from the first note to the last. She keeps things from growing monotonous and dull, something which can befall Bach’s works in lesser hands, given the somewhat... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Highly burnished, engaging, musically intelligent and emotionally mature playing; beautiful tone is never saccharine.
Disadvantages: Nil.

...phrasing, wisely varying her dynamics (volume) and never abusing her rubatos (elasticity of tempos). All are employed solely at the service of the music. She presents a beautifully realised whole from finely sculpted parts that, while carefully thought-out and constructed, never sound fastidious or prissy. There's a depth of feeling for the music that I fail to get from other prominent cellists of the day who shall remain nameless. The Cello Concerto was Elgar's response to the gloom that enveloped him and his generation after World War I. Even in the work's brief, lilting passages there lies an undercurrent of melancholy, evincing the composer's profound sense of loss after the Great War. The cello's mournful sound is used to great advantage, especially in the moving, Wagnerian slow movement (III: Adagio), and the soloist's instrument is front... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful