Comparison of 3 interpretations of Bach’s Cello Suite No 1: Prelude

Found 3 recordings (I’m sure there are more) on BWV1007 – which have been bothering me since it was truncated for the Taiwan tourism advertisement screening around S’pore because I can’t memorize it yet.

Which one do you like best?

Mischa Maisky
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Yo-Yo Ma
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Mstislav Rostropovich
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The impulses in these solo passages bothers me. The repeating figure requires somewhat a clear impulse to be pleasant, but longer phrases would bring especially the middle parts to live better. Mischa Maisky’s style is is to press and hold the impulse – something I tend to do when I play it on a trombone because I have to stop and breath, thus revealing the break. Yo Yo Ma perhaps played it more loosely in this recording (I’ve heard a different recording elsewhere) but to me it gives a better flavor, and less stress of the impulse. On the other hand, Rostropovich gave a huge phrase to the music, diminishing the bar by bar figures in favor of a longer phrase and more consistent semiquavers, but to the untrained ear it might seem like he’s practicing an etude. So the big question for me is for solo passages like that, whether there’s a need to hold the bass note longer to “fill up the room”, and hopping from bass note to bass note? People certainly don’t do that kind of thing on, say, the famous C-major prelude from Well Temper Clavier.

An interesting aside:- all the “G-major” pitch is different… !?