Bach: The Cello Suites / Organ Chorales

Valentin Erben, cellist of the legendary Alban Berg Quartet, presents his recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo suites, recorded in Erben's 75th year. Together with his son Sebastian, Erben has given the cycle of cello suites a framework by adding nine organ chorales, as it were bridges between the individual suites. Erben's playing is at once powerful and humble, youthful yet wise. Valentin Erben, cellist of the legendary Alban Berg Quartet, presents his recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's solo suites, recorded in Erben's 75th year. Together with his son Sebastian, Erben has given the cycle of cello suites a framework by adding nine organ chorales, as it were bridges between the individual suites. Erben's playing is at once powerful and humble, youthful yet wise - here we have an interpretation of these much-performed works that counters those interpretations that ostensibly focus on the instrumental virtuosity of Bach's music. The "lifelong chamber musician" Erben appears here as a soloist in the truest sense of the word, and one may regret, for all the joy of this recording, that the world had to wait so long for it.