Bach Suites from New Zealand

Bach: Cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012 Inbal Megiddo, cello. Atoll Records 233 Disc One: Total Time: 70:47 Disc Two: Total Time: 77:34 Recording:   ****/**** Performance: ****/****

Bach’s six cello suites are rites of passage for every cellist.  Audiophiles will also have the standards to compare this new release whether it is Pablo Casals (who first discovered these works), Jacqueline du Pre, Mstislav Rostropovich, Janos Starker, or Yo-Yo Ma to name just a few.  Inbal Megiddo was mentored by Rostropovich and studied with Yale University’s Aldo Parisot.  She teaches at the New Zealand School of Music and Victoria University-Wellington. 

The current release places the odd numbered works on disc one and even ones on disc two.  This keeps the tonal centers on disc one fairly close to one another, while disc two is framed by the d-minor and D-major works wrapped around no.4’s setting in Eb.  It no doubt helps even out the playing time more as well.  The more experimental aspects of the later sonatas are also somewhat set aside to let the listener acclimate to the general sound of Megiddo’s instrument.  She is playing on a “modern instrument”, a 1923 Giuseppe Fiorini.  The instrument has a gorgeous, warm tone and is captured well in this acoustic.

Megiddo’s performances do have a somewhat improvisatory feel which is necessary to keep the music from being too strictly interpreted.  There is great exuberance on display in the faster-paced gigues which feature crisp articulation.  The warm swaths of the melodic lines in the slower movements also comes across well here with excellent phrasing and control.  The preludes provide a window into the technical aspects of music with their arpeggiated and scalar lines that traverse the instrument.  There are some minor intonation issues that pop up a couple times in the Bourrées of BWV 1009, and some slight bent pitch moments in BWV 1010 at the ends of a movement.  These are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.  Highlights here are the first, fifth, fourth, and sixth sonata performances.  The latter has some particularly moving playing in the extensive “Allemande”.

From the exhilarant moments to the more profound, soul-filled slower movements (particularly in the minor-keyed suites), Megiddo provides a committed and intelligent performance that allows for personal expression which is what these works need to connect with the listener.

Atoll Records has packaged this in a cardboard 2-fer disc set that has cardboard sleeves and a brief little essay of reflections on each suite by Megiddo.  As mentioned, the sound is imaged well here.  There are some slightly audible performance “sounds” which just humanizes the experience all the more.  Recording a set like this becomes an important snapshot in time where Megiddo can look back later in a future recording and see how they have evolved.  Here, she emphasizes a more youthful quality and vitality in the music that brings each work alive.  There is much to recommend here for those wanting a complete reading of these works in gorgeous sound and played so beautifully.