Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Infinite Bach
Cello Suite No.1 in G major BWV1007
Cello Suite No.2 in D minor BWV1008
Cello Suite No.3 in C major BWV1009
Cello Suite No.4 in E flat major BWV1010
Cello Suite No.5 in C minor BWV1011
Cello Suite No.6 in D major BWV1012
Maya Beiser (cello)
rec. 2022, Art at Foothill Farm, Lenox, USA
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
Islandia Music IMR012 [160]

This is not just another recording of the much-taped Bach cello suites. All manner of things have been done to these works over years, particularly the famous prelude to the G major suite that opens the set. In comparison to the hundred and one different takes on it, that by Maya Beiser is simultaneously faithful and unfaithful. Beiser is normally involved in the performance of contemporary music and has a particular interested in the opportunities to manipulate sound that a modern studio affords. As she mentions in her introduction to this project, even when preparing contemporary pieces her practice ritual is that she has always commenced with a movement from the Bach suites. Now she brings her contemporary music sensibilities to the performance of the complete set. The results are stunning.

The faithful part of the equation is an insightful and straightforward rendition of these scores. The unfaithful takes the form of playing around with the audio, picking up features of the acoustic, layering the sound and so on. The first thing to say is that Beiser and her engineer and long-term collaborator Dave Cook do not overdo things. Everything that is added is a sincere, tasteful and sensitive response to the nature of the originals. In some movements their interventions are limited to provided deep resonant sound. In others, the results amount to a reinvention.

My initial experiences of sampling this recording were to worry that this project was a missed opportunity falling between two stools – neither sufficiently true to the score to compete with mainstream recordings nor adventurous enough to justify the efforts of cellist and producers. But as I listened I found myself drawn into their magical web of sound. Curiously, my first thought listening to the Prelude of the D minor suite was of Stokowski’s Bach arrangements. There is definitely something orchestral about the depth of the sound which draws the listener into the emotional heart of Bach. Another grand old man of the past, Otto Klemperer and his legendary Philharmonia recording of the St Matthew Passion popped into my head as I listened to the overlapping cello lamentations of the Sarabande of C minor suite. By which I mean that it conjures up some of the greatest of Bach recordings as I listened.

Is this then an old-fashioned view of these suites? Again the answer is ambiguous. Some of the tempi, as with the Prelude of the fourth suite, are strikingly slow. In this instance, the slow speed allows Beiser to exploit the resonant potential of the open strings to such a marvellous effect that the tempo quickly becomes irrelevant. In other movements, an example would be the bustling Gigue of the C major suite, her speed is utterly conventional. Conventional is not a word I would apply to the joyous buzz of strings that accumulates as her version of that movement proceeds.

One advantage of this approach is that, as in the Gigue of the D minor suite, each voice can be given its own subtly distinct acoustic to help the listener to follow the different strands of Bach’s polyphony. At times it is reminiscent of a consort of cellos. I would love to hear the same technique applied to the fugues of the Bach solo violin music.

I suspect this record will prove musical Marmite: for everyone who like me loves it there will be others who recoil from it as a gimmick. I would argue against those latter listeners that whether they like it or not, there is nothing gimmicky about this enterprise since both performance and production are clearly born of great respect for as well as love of this music. Anyone who fails to respond the achingly beautiful account of the E flat Sarabande I would suspect of pedantry for pedantry’s sake.

In essence all recordings are confections, even, perhaps especially, when they strive after the illusion of naturalism. They are all ways of presenting sound to the listener. Beiser’s way is to foreground this and through that to encourage us to hear the familiar in new ways. One of the strange ironies is that what seems like a highly artificial method of producing music ends up bringing us closer to the natural acoustic substance of Bach’s music. Given the immense subtlety and importance with which Bach traces the harmony of these pieces – with so much implied since a single stringed instrument cannot fully fill in that harmony – it is a delight to hear those celestial harmonies made so playfully and creative audible.

I was able to sample this recording in a variety of different digital formats and the one that seemed to capture the nature of Beiser’s project best was the Dolby Atmos spatial audio available via Apple Music but it sounded superb in all formats.

Setting aside the production – if that is even possible – this is one of the most rewarding and challenging sets of these suites I have heard since David Watkin’s near-definitive 2015 version (review). Above it all, like Everest above the other Himalayas, towers a majestic, soul-searching account of the C minor suite – a listening experience that will stay with me for a very long time.

David McDade

The following Presto Music link enables you to hear samples of each track but you can only purchase downloads. If you want a CD, go to https://islandiamusicshop.com/

Help us financially by purchasing from