The Swiss cellist Esther Nyffenegger is a new name to me. According to the booklet she attended the master-classes of Casals and Mainardi, since when she has apparently toured extensively making radio broadcasts, records and giving recitals. She can certainly produce a wonderful sound from her instrument, tuned, strung and otherwise equipped according to customary present-day usage. Her intonation is variablethough showing a strong propensity towards sharpness in pitch, she phrases effectively, and her vibrato is kept under very tight control; occasional notes which do not sound purely lead me to believe that she is interested more in giving a performance than in merely making a recording, which is another decided point in her favour.
One of the drawbacks in her playing is, I'm afraid, her apparent inability to adjust her sense of pitch. The Menuets of the G major Suite are painfully above the note and early passages in the Prelude of the Suite in E flat are almost intolerable to my ears for the same reason. Nyffenegger does not really seem to have thought out this tricky movement, which progresses relentlessly without much articulation and without any light or shade whatsoever. Allemandes and Courantes come off slightly better, though even in these animated movements I find her approach frankly dull. They come across as joyless dances which, of course, is thoroughly to misjudge their character—and a nadir of interpretative ennui is reached in the brilliant Prelude of the Sixth Suite in D major which is lifeless, shapeless and pedestrian, albeit very well played from a technical standpoint. In short, she seems unable to bring out that enchantment, animation and gracefulness which some of her colleagues have so brilliantly achieved in their performances. I doubt if this playing is going to win over many friends to Bach's unaccompanied cello music and can only imagine that her interpretative gifts reveal themselves more appositely in romantic and contemporary repertory for the instrument.'