Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007

Recordings worth hearing

• Pablo Casals

  Historical

  EMI / Warner · 1939

  The recording that turned these suites from studies into concert music. It sounds free, even wilful, by today's standards, and every version since descends from it.

• Jean-Guihen Queyras

  Modern

  Harmonia Mundi · 2007

  Queyras plays the complete cycle in Shanghai this season. His recording uses a lighter bow and near-dance tempi, returning the suites to the dances they are rather than six monuments.

• Anner Bylsma

  Period instruments

  Sony Vivarte · 1992

  Baroque cello and gut strings. Far less bass resonance, so the gaps between voices open up and you hear the harmony Bach implies with a single line.

Upcoming performances