For some unknown reason, it has taken five years for this recording, by one of the greatest cellists of our time, to reach us. It is, we are informed, the fifth time he has recorded the Bach Cello Suites, though only three previous sets seem to have been generally available in the UK – the 1952-8 Nixa (which omitted Suites Nos. 2 and 5, 10/63 – nla), the 1959-61 Columbia (now available in a six-disc box, EMI, 12/95) and the 1963-5 Mercury (now on a two-disc set). At the age of nearly 68 – the sessions took place a couple of weeks before his birthday – Starker was unlikely to make any radical changes to his approach. Forty-five years ago it fell to my lot to be the first British critic to acclaim him, and of his Nixa recordings I wrote admiringly of his “fluency of phrase, tone and impeccable intonation” and of his “dynamic attack and rhythmic vitality, which accentuate the essentially dance character of the movements” (an opinion seconded then by Andrew Porter and Denis Stevens).
Starker is quoted as saying “as the years and decades go by, the understanding grows while the technical means weaken”; but he is being unnecessarily self-deprecating. Far from there being any weakening of the technical means, these manifestations of a mature musical mind who has given a lifetime’s thought to these pillars of the cello repertoire are totally assured. His tone is more ‘nutty’ than, shall we say, Yo-Yo Ma’s, but his style, though cleanly muscular, is more expressive than Maisky’s (his D major Allemande is particularly beautiful), with a natural rise and fall of dynamics (though he might have made more of the forte-piano contrast at the start of the Sixth Suite).
The diversity of his bowing is exemplified in his treatment of the two C major Bourrees and the D major Courante. He does tend, at moments, to take his time over articulating phrase-endings (as in the G major Allemande or his eloquent C minor Prelude), but there is a notable momentum in the D minor Prelude – which he invests with a passionate melancholy without lapsing into sentimentality; and in the C major, E flat and D minor Sarabandes he preserves a wonderfully continuous melodic line despite their multiple-stopping. The French Overture-type Prelude to the Fifth Suite and its grandiose Allemande are impressive, as is the simple nobility of its intense Sarabande; but in lighter mood the G major Courante is sprightly and the Gigues of the Second and Third Suites have a vigorous rhythmic lift. As expected, the D major Suite (which may have been written for something other than the usual cello) brings out all Starker’s virtuosity. An issue to be warmly recommended.'