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.
“A completely new and inspiring benchmark for this unique tour de force” BBC Music Magazine, 1st June 2007
“the stuff of legend” The Independent (on Steven Isserlis)
“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” The Times
“This is an outstanding recording of some of the greatest works of classical music and a disc that every music-lover should own” Classic FM Magazine
“This is the most wondeful 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 … 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” Gramophone Magazine
“…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 Magazine, July 2007
Gramophone Awards 2007
Gramophone Magazine
CD Review
BBC Music Magazine
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2008
