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Dave Billinge's review of Rohan de Saram's Bach cello suites
Posted by Ralph Moore on December 16, 2020, 11:11 pm
Thank you, Dave, for what is, I think, a paradigm of what a good MusicWeb review should be: concise, personal, to the point, undogmatic, not too academic and containing the right degree of comparison with other recordings.
(since further improved by Pristine). It was, perhaps rather too long as I introduced a fairly extensive degree of comparison with other sets, but I agree with Dave about Starker, as I wrote that his "is certainly a compelling interpretation and does not sound rushed by virtue of his technical brilliance and the laser-like intensity of his line."
I have since reviewed here issues from Weilerstein, Kotova and Cocset, finding the first two, in particular, as good as any. I now have far too many versions on my shelves, including Fournier, Rostropovich, Watkins et al, and really should not add de Saram's to the ten or more already there but I am sure he is right to observe that this will probably afford the listener as much pleasure as any, as Bach's music, like Bruckner's, is very tolerant of interpretative diversity.