These are works that to many are more divine than earthly in their mighty magnificence. They seemingly are not just that for Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey. It is his marvellous balancing of the celestial with the everyday worldly that make this sparkling account of the suites so fascinating and rewarding. Sure, there's more than a little pile of recording to chose from, when acquiring a set of the suites. Casals, Starker, Fournier, Schiff, Bengtson, Rostropovich and Ma are just some alternatives. However I firmly believe that the Wispelwey set makes a valuable addition to the excisting catalogue in its portrayal of a down-to-earth kind of humanism. The tremendous and almost sacral approach one encounters with Casals and Rostropovich, or the more sophisticated and intellectual manner of Fournier, is in the hands of Wispelwey brought down into our everyday world. The aspects of liveliness and humour are suddenly in the frontseat accompanying the more heavenly qualities, in a manner most charming.

The suites for solo cello are products of Bach's prolific years at Köthen, written when the composer was in his mid-thirties. They are, as Wispelwey himself wittily states in the accomanying booklet, quite unique; what would prompt a composer of great polyphonic works to write solo music for the cello? Wispelwey suggests as a "prelude" to the following sonatas and partitas for violin, or merely as a true challenge from a man of startling originality. However grand the upscale works of Bach are, I personally have troble finding the same profundity and sincerity in, say the B-minor Mass or the Matthäus passion, as I sense in these allencompassing works.