Search - Johann Sebastian Bach :: Bach: 6 Suites for Cello Solo

A fitting memorial for a great artist

Arthur R. Krieck | New York, NY USA | 04/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These recordings offer a kind of music-making seldom heard today, committed, intense and vivid. There are no gaps of concentration here: every note is played with such passionate attention that the music seems to live on its own, beyond the instrument. After decades of exposure to "period" performance practice one might raise one's eyebrows at some of Miss Fuchs' choices of tempo and articulation, but the playing is so gorgeously musical that these questions are irrelevant.



The remastering is quite well done, using good but aged (monophonic) vinyl copies of these early 1950s recordings as sources, rather than the original master tapes. As a result there is some LP surface noise and a bit of turntable rumble, and the music which was at the end of an LP side is more constricted in sound and frequency range, and somewhat more distorted, than that at the outer edge, a common flaw of the LP medium. But the sound overall is quite lstenable and Miss Fuchs' unique, rich tone, faultless intonation and extraordinary facility on her huge Gaspar da Salo viola are well-reproduced."