For starters, the packaging of this CD is absolutely ridiculous. The disc is held in place by a rigid, rough cardboard sleeve. After removing it from the sleeve only once, it was already scratched and covered with debris. The liner notes also fell out of their binding almost immediately. While there's nothing wrong with innovative packaging, it still needs to be functional and a safe place to store the disc. The content of said liner notes is also quite peculiar. It consists of little more than a laundry list of
Bach's compositions during his Cothen period and an unusual description of the villa in which the recordings were made.
The
Bach Solo Suites likely produce more debate, controversy, and ire than any other work in the cello repertoire. This recording by cellist
Paolo Beschi is not likely to leave any listeners on the fence between liking it and disliking it. For aficionados of the suites who like to hear something different now and then, this is definitely it. But what is different is not always better. The three preludes on this album are significantly faster than anything in memory, so fast, in fact, that there seems to be no time to savor
Bach's delicious tonalities and chromaticism. Despite the fact that the liner notes devote an entire page to the definition of each of the dance movements in a Baroque suite,
Beschi's tempos and rhythmic distortions are at times completely antithetical to the dance concept.