The catalog of Bach Cello Suite recordings is starting to burst at the seams, especially with the proliferation of re-issued classics. Plus, listeners have to choose between period performance practitioners and excellent interpretations using modern instruments. This situation becomes even more complicated when those using modern equipment use key facets of authentic interpretation technique, creating a viable hybrid category. Now Classico has recorded the very talented Daniel Müller-Schott, who has a really nice tone and technique to spare, and the set is captured in a warm, close-up acoustic, with maybe a little extra reverb.
From the opening bars of the G major Prelude, two things become apparent: One is that Müller-Schott is an intelligent, thoughtful musician who has spent most of his life with this music, and also has spent a good amount of time studying period-style technique; second is that he is one of today’s many young cellists who don’t always seem to be sure how to apply the period approach with a modern instrument and bow. Actually, the bow is the more important part of the equation. The Preludes are a good example: although Müller-Schott’s phrasing is on the mark, and total detaché is the authentic performance rule for the first and fourth Preludes, the period style fails him because he creates too much bounce with his modern bow, and the more subtle aspects of Bach’s phrases are sacrificed for a larger sense of forward drive. He fares much better in the Allemandes and Courantes (save for an incongruous moment at the beginning of the one in C major), where the lines lend themselves much more to legato phrasing and the bowing is much more compatible with the modern instrument.
Tempos for the Sarabandes are better-judged than those of one of his teachers, Heinrich Schiff, and he never lets the faster sections get the best of him. This new version doesn’t come close to beating Torlief Thedéen on BIS, who is the wonderfully perfect exponent of the hybrid category mentioned above, or Pieter Wispelwey’s incredible, otherworldly period instrument account on Channel Classics. I’d be very interested, though, to see what Müller-Schott does with this music in five or ten years.
