Harmonia Mundi: HMC901970/71

"A recording of all six of Bach's suites by the choice young cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras is in the offing from the Harmonia Mundi label, so it was particularly opportune to have a foretaste of his approach in this lunchtime recital... Queyras's playing has a magnetic quality and a spectrum of nuances that, in these solo circumstances, generated interpretations of great subtlety, sensibility and radiance... There was perhaps no more perfect antidote to the Bank Holiday tumult of Oxford Street than Queyras's Bach suite. …There was no hint of ostentation or overstatement in any of this, but only an affecting naturalness from a musician who has clearly thought deeply about the music and the emotional range it conveys." The Times, live review

“Queyras is master of his instrument. Intonation is well-nigh impeccable, including meeting Bach's demands of a five-string cello on a normal four-strong instrument… He's an exciting player. He sustains harmonic bass-notes though, most notably in the first Prelude where the superb acoustic of a church in Sulzberg in southern Germany allows the harmony to build up dramatically.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 *****