Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Prélude | |||
| 2. Allemande | |||
| 3. Courante | |||
| 4. Sarabande | |||
| 5. Menuett I | |||
| 6. Menuett II | |||
| 7. Gigue | |||
| 8. Prélude | |||
| 9. Allemande | |||
| 10. Courante | |||
See all 21 tracks on this disc
| |||
| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Prélude | |||
| 2. Allemande | |||
| 3. Courante | |||
| 4. Sarabande | |||
| 5. Menuett I | |||
| 6. Menuett II | |||
| 7. Gigue | |||
| 8. Prélude | |||
| 9. Allemande | |||
| 10. Courante | |||
|
See all 21 tracks on this disc
| |||
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
117 of 120 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
As an ex professional 'cellist myself I'm more than familiar with these suites by Bach. Their content is detailed in other reviews - here I wish to comment just on Tortelier's interpretation.
One of the greatest things about the suites is that they are so flexible to player's interpretation and Tortelier makes this abundantly clear with the opening bars of the prelude to the first suite. His technique is astounding, precise, lyrical and beautiful. The music literally dances in novel and previously unimagined ways that blows me away every time I hear it.
Yo Yo Ma's extremely accomplished suites are lush and beautiful but sound flat, dull and unimaginative by comparison. Rostropovich's suites sound ham fisted, bullying the music out of the instrument without the dexterity or refinement of Tortelier. Even the god-like Casals would have to admit that Tortelier's account of this incredible music puts more depth into every note than even he could manage.
Buy this record. Buy it for anyone that has ever known the suites and especially buy it for anyone that already owns a copy by another 'cellist. Any 'cellist. If he recorded no other record in his lifetime this recording alone would mark him out as a genius. If each piece is a song then Tortelier turns them into Operas.
Don't take my word for it. Listen for yourself. I swear that afterwards you'll be compelled to write something similar here!
49 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's surprising how very different interpretations of these amazing solo works can each convince you that, yes, that's the way they should go. Certainly, with Bach's Cello Suites as with Shakespeare's Cleopatra, custom cannot stale their infinite variety. Casals, their rediscoverer, brought his inimitable mix of style and passion to them. Rostropovich seemed to chisel them out of the rock like some marmoreal Michelangelo statue. For some cellists, they are towering and grandiloquent. For others, they are intimate and personal. Some emphasise the joy of the dance movements, others the intensity of the sarabandes, others still apply the strictest theories of authentic period performance to them.
Anyone of a certain age will recall the passionate commitment to these Suites shown by a highly charismatic Tortelier in his TV masterclasses of 50 years or so ago. That same commitment shines through these performances from the 70's. These are readings where you can take technique for granted. What's more important, Tortelier allows the infinite variety of the Suites themselves and each of the movements within them to speak their own language. There's charm, wit, humour, beauty, emotion, spirituality as it's called for. Tortelier understands that these are dance suites, but that they also encapsulate great profundity in their notes. If I had to sum up his interpretations in one word, it would be their `humanity'. And that seems particularly right for the secular works Bach wrote with such obvious pleasure while he was at the court of the young Prince Leopold in Cothen. Away from the world of church services, Bach produced works that were just as profound in a different, I'm tempted to say more human, certainly more humanist way. That is something that seems particularly close to Tortelier's heart and thinking. And it comes out wonderfully in these performances.
Anyone of a certain age will recall the passionate commitment to these Suites shown by a highly charismatic Tortelier in his TV masterclasses of 50 years or so ago. That same commitment shines through these performances from the 70's. These are readings where you can take technique for granted. What's more important, Tortelier allows the infinite variety of the Suites themselves and each of the movements within them to speak their own language. There's charm, wit, humour, beauty, emotion, spirituality as it's called for. Tortelier understands that these are dance suites, but that they also encapsulate great profundity in their notes. If I had to sum up his interpretations in one word, it would be their `humanity'. And that seems particularly right for the secular works Bach wrote with such obvious pleasure while he was at the court of the young Prince Leopold in Cothen. Away from the world of church services, Bach produced works that were just as profound in a different, I'm tempted to say more human, certainly more humanist way. That is something that seems particularly close to Tortelier's heart and thinking. And it comes out wonderfully in these performances.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Paul Tortelier (March 21, 1914 - December 18, 1990)
I first encountered Paul Tortelier on BBC Two when he gave his wonderful series of "Masterclasses"; a devout and natural polymath, he slipped unassumingly from language to language searching for the right words or sensitively discuss a student's playing before playing it himself to illustrate his points. With his unusually bent end pin and spike and his individualistic method, e.g. using only one finger on strings to heighten and deepen the strings' free vibration, most often, his enthusiasm would take him and he would just join in and play along. That joy, depth of enthusiasm, sensitivity and high degree of academic understanding are evident on this CD.
A great exponent of Bach, in his phrasing, fingering and dynamics, he draws all there is from these wonderful pieces in virtuoso performances, recorded sensitively to bring out the true, resonant quality of the instrument.
I first encountered Paul Tortelier on BBC Two when he gave his wonderful series of "Masterclasses"; a devout and natural polymath, he slipped unassumingly from language to language searching for the right words or sensitively discuss a student's playing before playing it himself to illustrate his points. With his unusually bent end pin and spike and his individualistic method, e.g. using only one finger on strings to heighten and deepen the strings' free vibration, most often, his enthusiasm would take him and he would just join in and play along. That joy, depth of enthusiasm, sensitivity and high degree of academic understanding are evident on this CD.
A great exponent of Bach, in his phrasing, fingering and dynamics, he draws all there is from these wonderful pieces in virtuoso performances, recorded sensitively to bring out the true, resonant quality of the instrument.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Basch 6 cello suites
Sublime music that I listen to every day, Buy it now if you want to hear the master's music now. Fantastic music
Published 8 days ago by NIckgardener
A wonder, no less
These recordings, which I have in the LP format have never been out of the catalogue. I think that speaks for itself. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dag Kyndel
France or Spain
Bach Cello suites rate as mountains in the cello repertoire. Only players of world class reach the peaks. To me the two greatest players of these works are Tortelier and Casals. Read more
Published 12 months ago by John Dale
The best that I've heard!
I currently own recordings of the Bach cello suites by Rostropovich, Casals, Yo-Yo Ma and Fournier and have heard many others. Tortelier's recording is my firm favourite. Read more
Published on 25 May 2008 by Robert Manser
Great recordings from the last Century
These recordings from 1983 were originally available as two separate CDs, which is how I first came to hear them. Read more
Published on 2 Nov 2007 by Mart Music
The cello is tortuous and torturous beauty
The Cello is a rare instrument that can live on its own with no great difficulty at all, even if we do not know it very well nor very much. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2005 by Jacques COULARDEAU
Poetic and inspirational
Torterlier was a friend of Pablo Casals, and was invited to be principal cellist at the first Prades Festival, which commemorated the 200th anniversary of Bach's death. Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2005 by Mr. Rgs Draycott
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
![GEMINI series [2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QtTjYR7SL._AA60_.jpg)
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
