ECHOES OF BACH | LIMELIGHT

Any young cellist wishing to record Bach must surely be aware of the competition, ranging from Casals through Rostropovich to Yo-Yo Ma (whose third and most satisfying recording of the Cello Suites appeared on Sony last year). Mike Block has decided to place individual movements from each of the Suites into a broader context, interspersing them with pieces by the quirky 20th-century master György Ligeti (the Solo Cello Sonata), the Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun (his Partita for Solo Cello), and – closer to Bach – one movement from a Ricercare by the Baroque composer/cellist Domenico Gabrielli. There is also a piece by Giovanni Sollima: Citarruni, commissioned for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project.

Block is a member of the Silk Road Ensemble, having joined while he was still a music student at Juilliard. As a multi-discipline musician, he is known for vocals and also movement in his cello recitals, the latter made possible by a block strap.
His musical interests are wide, and Bach has not been central to his repertoire. To my ears, his clean-limbed approach works well in the quick dance movements; the Gigue from Suite No 6 is feather light. In deeper pieces he cedes to past masters in locating the music’s emotional core. Even so, his programming pays dividends. The sinuous Middle Eastern modality of Saygun’s piece throws the purity of Bach’s Sarabande from Suite No 6 into sharp relief. Ligeti’s Solo Sonata forms a stylistic bridge, with the first movement referencing Bach in tone, while the second introduces colouristic avant-garde techniques.

The final two tracks form an arresting conclusion. Sollima’s Silk Road piece is a virtuoso percussive take on a folk dance that Block dispatches with fierce vitality. He then returns to Bach (Sarabande from Suite No 1), but plays it pizzicato with an unerring jazzman’s feel.