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 75^th 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.