A former rock critic, Siblin was inspired upon attending a performance of Bach Cello suites 10 years ago to delve into the history of their composition, as well as their introduction by Pablo Casals into the modern concert repertoire.
While the concept of the book is very attractive, the execution is rather disappointing. At times the pages stained my fingers purple from the painful attempts at highfalutin' classical music criticism. As seems to be a recent trend in historical non-fiction, the book is about three people: Bach, Casals, and the author. The information about Bach and Casals in interesting and fairly well-organized--although at times it suffers from excessive repetition and a fractured time-line. The book's greatest weakness is that the last subject of the book is a rather mediocre figure who is hardly worth the pages he devotes to expounding on himself, his experiences, his prejudices and his ungrounded opinions.
Get more detail about The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece.
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