Bach - The Cello Suites

Hyperion: CDA67541/2

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Bach - The Cello Suites

Awards:

Gramophone Awards 2007

Best of Category - Instrumental

Gramophone Magazine

Editor's Choice - July 2007

CD Review

Critics Disc of the Year - December 2007

BBC Music Magazine

Disc of the month - June 2007

BBC Music Magazine Awards 2008

Instrumental Finalist

Label:

Hyperion

Catalogue No:

CDA67541/2

Discs:

2

Release date:

30th April 2007

Barcode:

0034571175416

Medium:

CD
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Bach - The Cello Suites


Bach, J S:

Cello Suites Nos. 1-6, BWV1007-1012


Also includes "The Song of the Birds" arranged by Sally Beamish and different versions of the Prelude to the first suite from the manuscripts of Anna Magdalena, Johann Peter Kellner and the collection of Johann Christoph Westphal.

CD - 2 discs

$33.75

In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day.

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Praeludium

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Menuet 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #1 In G, BWV 1007 - Gigue

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Praeludium

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Menuet 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #2 In D Minor, BWV 1008 - Gigue

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Praeludium

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Bourrée 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #3 In C, BWV 1009 - Gigue

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Praeludium

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Bourrée 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #4 In E Flat, BWV 1010 - Gigue

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 1. Prelude

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 2. Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 3. Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 4. Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 5. Gavotte 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #5 In C Minor, BWV 1011 - 6. Gigue

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 1. Prelude

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 2. Allemande

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 3. Courante

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 4. Sarabande

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 5. Gavotte 1 & 2

playBach: Cello Suite #6 In D, BWV 1012 - 6. Gigue

playTrad: The Song Of The Birds

playBach: Prelude, From The Anna Magdalena Manuscript

playBach: Prelude, From The Johann Peter Kellner Manuscript

playBach: Prelude, From The Collection Of Johann Christoph Westphal

BBC Music Magazine

1st June 2007

“A completely new and inspiring benchmark for this unique tour de force”

The Independent

(on Steven Isserlis)

“the stuff of legend”

The Times

“Isserlis is a passionate musician, but never thoughtless or frivolous, and the delicacy of his responses on this wonderful set sometimes take the breath away. If your soul fails to quiver in the quiet depths of the fifth suite’s sarabande, then you must be a robot in disguise. Yet he’s not on his knees always worshipping: time and again Isserlis asserts the music’s dance roots, whether through his thrusting accents or by sweeping through with a winning lilt … Just listen to Isserlis, Bach and your heart, and the music that never dies”

Classic FM Magazine

July 2011

“Isserlis couples scholarly depth with technical wizardry and exuberant passion. Time stands still at the intensely moving Fifth Sarabande. Supreme recordings.”

bbc.co.uk

Charlotte Gardner

22nd May 2007

“Isserlis has done the impossible. He has given the listener something new, and indeed something outstandingly good...He suggests that their expressive journey marks them as “Mystery Suites”, travelling from the nativity...to the Resurrection...Unusual as the decision is, it does work.”

Gramophone Magazine

July 2007

“…this… the most wonderful cello-playing, surely among the most consistently beautiful to have been heard in this demanding music, as well as the most musically alert and vivid. …few will fail to be charmed by Isserlis's sweetly singing tone, his perfectly voiced chords and superb control of articulation and dynamic - the way the final chord of the First Prélude dies away is spellbinding.”

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

2010

“Steven Isserlis clearly venerates Casals as an important figure in the suites' history, even paying touching homage to him by appending a performance of a Catalan folksong. Like Casals, Isserlis bided his time before committing them to disc, and he has looked for interpretative guidance to extra-musical ideas.
Isserlis proposes a detailed concept. For him the Suites suggest a meditative cycle on the life of Christ, rather like Biber's Mystery Sonatas.
He points out that this is 'a personal feeling, not a theory', but it has to be said that once you know that he is thinking of the Agony in the Garden during the darkly questioning Second Suite (the five stark chords towards the end of the Prélude representing the wounds of Christ), the Crucifixion in the wearily troubled Fifth or the Resurrection in the joyous Sixth, it adds immense power and interest to his performances.
But then, this is also the most wonderful celloplaying, surely among the most consistently beautiful to have been heard in this demanding music, as well as the most musically alert and vivid. Not everyone will like the brisk tempi (though the Allemandes, for instance, gain in architectural coherence), but few will fail to be charmed by Isserlis's sweetly singing tone, his perfectly voiced chords and superb control of articulation and dynamic – the way the final chord of the First Prélude dies away is spellbinding.
There are so many other delights: the subtle comings and goings of the Third Prélude, the nobly poised Fifth Allemande, the swaggering climax that is the Sixth Gigue – to name but a few. Suffice to say that Isserlis's Bach is a major entrant into an already highly distinguished field, and a disc many will want to return to again and again.”

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