Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Suites

(An) honest and disarming account of Bach’s extraordinary brainchild. Plenty of spiritual food for even the most discerning music lover. A reading not to be missed. (...) Full of detail, and with realistic dynamics, provided one has the equipment to go with it.

Quirine Viersen plays the complete suites for unaccompanied cello on the second album released on BarcaNova Records. The work, which consists of six suites, is a rediscovery for Viersen of her passion for music and cello, which is the reason for the re-release of the Suites.

It is precisely that freedom and possibilities for interpretation that continued to appeal to Quirine Viersen. Born in 1972 from a musical nest, the cellist born in 1972 came into doubt about her life as a musician, partly thanks to the birth of her twin daughters and the toll motherhood took at the expense of her stage time. Quirine, however, found her personal anchor in Bach and gave her life energy again.

The purity she experienced made her feel like continuing to convey the essence of music through the cello. Self-reflection and the desire to be able to show purity forced her to delve into Bach's cello suites again, while her fascination with the process that Bach must have gone through during the composing of the six suites provided inspiration. Viersen reports that Bach may have considered the pieces as an experiment or study material. "The further you go in the suites, the greater the technical challenges." Quirine experiences the musical journey and personal growth that Johann Sebastian Bach must have experienced, which led to the narrative new recording of the complete suites.

Recorded in the first part of 2018 in the Koepelkerk in Renswoude, Quirine Viersen performed her interpretation of the complete suites for unaccompanied cello. Bert van der Wolf from Northstar Recording Services took care of the recordings and the producer was BarcaNova Records owner Hubert Koekenberg.

The Complete Suites for Unaccompanied Cello in the performance of Quirine Viersen show the cellist's love for Bach's work well. Viersen knows how to convert the (musical) life energy she found in Bach back into an almost emotional transfer of the suites, in which she transfers the polyphonic music to the listener in an engaging way. She makes the many interactions that exist between the voices sound, while the intimacy of the instrument and the complexity of the music are combined by her into a natural, narrative whole. Where necessary, Viersen puts a good dose of emotion into her play, which translates into melancholy or even melancholy, for example, in a piece like Suite II in D Minor (BWV 1008).

But it is mainly the personality in combination with the interpretations of how Viersen approaches Bach that turns this performance into something magical. Quirine brings the pieces to life, as if they were organisms that evolve. She lets her cello speak, carries out her own interpretations in phrases in engaging ways and combines light-heartedness with speed and deep sounds with the quieter passages. The great thing about it is that Viersen's performance sounds so full of respect towards Bach that she transcends herself in the service of music. Nothing less than engaging.

BarcaNova Records brings Quirine Viersen - Bach | Complete Works for Unaccompanied Cello as a DSD High Resolution release. The DSD edition, in my opinion, sounds just a bit better than the LP. The multi-channel surround layer of the album certainly shows the acoustics of the church in Renswoude beautifully and all (six) channels are naturally balanced. It doesn't get more personal than this. But whatever version you listen to, You always know how to take Viersen into 'her' world called Johann Sebastian Bach and do so in a pure, engaging way. Recommended.

Music: 9 out of 10
Sound: 9.5 out of 10