Kevin Sutton wrote: >Sandra Beane wrote: > >>In reguards to the bach suites. I feel that Rosterpovich is the best. ... > >Sandra is of course entitled to her opinions, but I completely disagree. >The Rostropovich to my ears is completely unmusical. He hacks and saws >away at them as if he cello were a tree to be felled, not an instrument to >be played. ... Kevin is of course entitled to his opinion but I completely disagree. Although I wouldn't choose Rostropovich as my favourite recording to call him *unmusical* and accuse him of *hacking and sawing* disqualifies any listener IMO. I wonder if anyone else thinks of Rostropovich that way. I would be shocked. An then Yo-Yo Ma. The new versions are most certainly no gimmick at all. I've seen the Ma video - which as I understand was broadcasted on TV - and I think this is a failure. Ma would do himself a favour to restrict himself to music. But the recordings were made *before* the video and they are typical Ma recordings - soft spoken, maybe too gentle, all sorts of criticism are possible - but they have *nothing* to do with *Bach TV* or *cheap gimmicks*. They just happened to be used in a film about which one may have his doubts. I would venture to think that Kevin was prejudiced against these interpretations for that reason. One other thing: I was very much impressed by the image of Ma in Mali or Senegal, having explained a local instrument to him (the *ngoni*, if memory serves). Afterwards Ma played a part of the first movement of the first Bach suite, his cello firmly planted in the African soil. He stopped and commented that in this environment Bach sounded so incredibly *young* to him. It realized that I felt exactly the same way but hadn't been able to define it like he did. I found this an important and beautiful observation. Philip