Alisa Weilerstein - Bach review I Erica Jeal's classical album of the week

The Guardian 80

Weilerstein
(Pentatone)
The exceptional cellist’s music emerges with sunlit clarity in a recording that stands up with the best

Three years ago, when Alisa Weilerstein played the complete Bach Cello Suites end-to-end at St John’s Smith Square, it sounded as though she had not yet taken full ownership of the music: this exceptional cellist’s eloquence was hobbled by uncertainty of direction and hints of impatience. Now she has recorded the suites – something the 38-year-old admits she had previously intended to put off until she was “much older” – and those uncertainties have been worked out and put away. What emerges is a performance that unfolds at its own pace and in its own space, inward-looking yet confident – one captured at exactly the right time.