Four new sets of the Bach cello suites have now appeared in less than 18 months, and as the tercentenary year draws to a close this is perhaps a good moment to survey the field. One of the first things the collector will note is that two of the four fine cellists listed here come very much more expensive than the others—with Yo-Yo Ma (CBS) and Mischa Maisky accommodated on three records and Lynn Harrell (Decca) and Heinrich Schiff on only two. Everyone makes up his own mind about such things, but given that all four players observe all the repeats throughout the six works, you may agree that for most people it would require an unshakeable loyalty to Ma or Maisky to justify the extra outlay. Or a particular admiration for their readings, of course. Another consideration is the availability of CD. It exists or has already been announced for Harrell and Maisky but not yet for the others. Compact Disc is a particularly convenients format for music of this kind, which does not pre-suppose that everyone seeking delight in these collections of pieces will always want to begin at the beginning and listen through to the last note of the gigue. The Maisky LPs I've been listening to are not banded, so here is no possibility of spotting accurately a sarabande or a couple of bourrees one may wish to hear. Schiff's set is banded, but with no less than 12 tracks on each side of the first record—two complete suites—it needs good eyesight, a steady hand and a certain amount of planning to pick out what you want. How spoilt one becomes by the convenience of CD! By the way, Harrell's two-disc set on LP has Suites Nos. 2 and 5 interrupted by side-breaks. All credit, then, to HMV for arranging Schiff's performances so conveniently and for getting nearly 37 minutes of a consistently excellent recording on Side 1 (Suites Nos. 1 and 4) and nearly 39 minutes (Suites Nos. 2 and 3) on Side 2. The locale of this recording was the Evangelical Church in Seon, Switzerland. Judging from the ease of Schiff's playing and from its variety of colour, the acoustic must have been sympathetic to him. Maisky, recorded in a hall in Bamberg, also sounds well but I don't have such a strong impression of the contribution made by a good acoustic. He could be anywhere. There is a little more space around the sound, but that is all.
Maisky's style of playing needs the space. It is grand, sonorous, imposing—communicating in a more public tone of voice than most cellists favour in unaccompanied Bach these days. (LS found Harrell ''so quietly confidential that he seems only to be allowing us to eavesdrop on his private musings''.) Even the most intimate movements—the Sarabande of Suite No. 5, for instance—are projected with a theatrical hush that one senses is meant to reach the back of the stalls. It is terrific cello playing but it sometimes strikes me as a bit much. The manner is insistent, the line as legato and full as can be fashioned. The Allemande of Suite No. 6, with repeats, lasts 12'7'' on CD; on LP one repeat has had to be cut in order to get the work on to one side. The sound is lovely, but at the beginning of this movement I wondered if Maisky was ever going to come off the first long note—and the trouble with such slow tempos is that the larger harmonic shapes become barely perceptible. The Prelude of Suite No. 4 is an instance where the music seems almost rooted to the spot, obsessed by a one-bar pattern, winching its way forward only with difficulty. This E flat Suite takes 19' in Maisky's performance, 21' in Schiff's.
A difference of no less than eight minutes might call for remark in a performance of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony; in a Bach suite one can only say that either Bach gave his interpreters an extraordinary freedom or one of his interpreters here has got something wrong. Well, I can enjoy Maisky's high eloquence but it is rather unremitting, and I do find a more varied world and what I sense to be a more balanced and idiomatic projection of the music from Schiff. The contrast with Maisky could hardly be stronger. There is eloquence but also grace, briskness and lightness of spirit; grandeur—in the big preludes—but without inflation; variety of pace; variety of expression (which I find Maisky particularly short on); and above all much more variety of articulation than we're accustomed to hear. It's as if Schiff has taken an intelligent interest in the revival of old playing styles, as pioneered in his own country by Harnoncourt and Anner Bijlsma in Holland, and brought to his interpretations, on the modern cello, a perception of the different range of expressiveness that was once proper to the suites. It is a range which today's players, unless they have Schiff's intellectual curiosity, are inclined to ignore. But Schiff has done more than attempt to graft a few 'authentic' features on to a traditional reading. In his attempt to free the music from the tyranny of the bar-line his set may not always be successful, I think, but it is always vivid and fresh. He communicates, to me, more enjoyment in the playing than the other cellists here, and I would describe his achievement as the most stimulating version of the suites to have emerged since Tortelier's in 1983 (HMV SLS107772-3, 11/83).'