Although there is no dearth of great performances of Bach's Suites for solo cello -- indeed, they seem to be increasing geometrically as the years go by -- this 2003 recording by
Maria Kliegel still deserves to be heard. Heck, it deserves to be embraced and cherished as one of the warmest, most human, and most moving performances of the Suites ever recorded. Listening to
Kliegel, one is hardly aware of her magnificent technique any more than one is aware of her magisterial interpretations. Although deeply individualistic,
Kliegel's performances are so effortless, so natural, so inevitable that one is hardly aware that they are performances. One seems instead to hear the music without an intermediary, its long lines, its dark colors, and its ineluctable rhythms without mediation. Better yet, one seems to hear the emotional, the intellectual, and the spiritual contents of the music without intermediary, its brilliance, its evanescence, and its profundity without mediation. While
Kliegel's phrasing and tempos are all her own, the heights and depths of her performances seem greater than the sum of the phrasing and tempo. They appear to touch the infinite. Naxos' Hungarian sound is subtle and rich.