GREAT RECORDINGS phase 11

BACH: CELLO SUITES
Pablo Casals

5 62611 2 (2CDs)

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'These performances of the Bach Cello Suites, the first ever to be recorded, remain the classic yardstick by which all later ones must still be judged. In these splendid recordings, Casals's superb playing offers us the finest fruits of his great art.' (Gramophone)

Awards: Diapason d'Or & Choc du Monde de la Musique, France.

At the age of 13, Pablo Casals found a copy of Bach's Suites, of whose existence he knew nothing, in a second-hand music shop in Barcelona, where he was studying the cello and playing in a café to earn money to support himself. The Suites were a revelation to Casals, who immediately recognised their exceptional importance.

For the next twelve years he studied the scores and worked on his interpretation of the works. Only when he was 25 did he have the courage to play one of them in public. At the turn of the 19th century, Bach's instrumental music was rarely performed and was considered 'cold' and academic, a notion Casals was anxious to disprove.

This he triumphantly did, but he could not be persuaded to record the Cello Suites for another 30-odd years, when, after endless urging from Fred Gaisberg, HMV's famous recording manager, he set down these definitive performances (first in London in 1936 [Nos.2 & 3] and then in Paris in 1938 and 1939 [Nos.1 & 4-6]).