Review: A Double Helping of Solo Bach

By Emily Wright | From the January/February 2026 issue of Strings

Bogart and Bacall. Coffee and pastry. Cellists and Bach. Some things just go together. In a moment of serendipity, Anastasia Kobekina’s and Inbal Megiddo’s new albums of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, came across my desk at the same time, inviting me to acquaint myself with them in tandem and review them the same way.

Because I am a libertine, I reached first for the glittering jewels of the Preludes, like a person taking all the good See’s Candies before anyone even knows there’s a box in the house. A Bach Prelude functions as a kind of light box for an artist to drape their perspective over, illuminating it from within. From the jump, Megiddo signals to the listener that she has ideas of her own. In fact, both albums seem to make a deliberate point of straying from much of the orthodoxy established in the 20th century. 

I gasped in delight at the rubato Megiddo applies to the opening of the first Prelude, and again at the unadorned solitude evoked in the second, after which I needed to sit somewhere and collect myself for a time. Her fourth Suite sounds effortless, never hinting at the daring leaps and inconvenient string crossings it demands. The overarching spirit of this album is a warm rapport between composer and listener. While recording the Suites is often described as “Everest for cellists,” there is an organic quality to Megiddo’s playing that reads more like an open-armed invitation than a declaration of victory over the notes. Megiddo is a modern, lively ambassador for Bach’s vision in this wonderfully fresh contribution to the opus.

Kobekina is not the only cellist in recent years to record these movements on a Baroque instrument, but there is a distinct feeling that her interpretation is explicitly guided by what the instrument itself wanted (and perhaps the space in which she recorded as well). The result is a sensibility of phrasing unlike any I have encountered, creating a frisson of newness. Notes that usually interrupt each other are allowed to breathe. Endings decay for as long as the sound lingers in the room. There is something delicious about this album; it feels unhurried and surprising, even in the quickest movements. 

There is an intimacy in the way Kobekina takes listeners into her confidence and takes them along to adventurous places with dynamics, using the lightest possible touch to whisper aching dolces and whimsical appoggiaturas. She moves fluently between arresting, ominous statements and delicate flourishes, with a healthy dose of humor: Her third Suite Gigue contains enough trap doors and asides to challenge even the bleakest of moods. 

Both albums beg to be listened to on headphones, and even the budget earbuds that came with my phone delivered enough isolation that I could appreciate the details. Switching over to more upmarket headphones revealed the command Kobekina mustered over every possible expressive device and offers a real sense of live performance in Megiddo’s rendition: Her generous vibrato burnishes a gleaming tone that asks to be listened to again and again.