A spellbinding set that is arguably Podger's finest recorded achievement to date...Music that one thinks of instinctively as boldly-etched, deeply (in every sense) introspective and eliciting a melancholic sense of struggle, becomes more dance-like, airy and freewheeling.

Podger adopts the Suites with bravura and the confidence that while their nature may change, their stature will not be diminished… Shorter strings allow for graceful ornamentation of gigues beyond the reach of even the most fleet-fingered cellist… whereas the sarabandes demand all of Podger’s bow control and even then their essential gravity is necessarily modulated with the smile of a more flowing pulse.

Reclothed in the brighter colours of D major, the opening Prelude of the ‘G major’ Suite shimmers with an unfamiliar, iridescent beauty that’s as disconcerting as it’s beguiling…Like many of my most treasured interpreters Podger never draws undue attention to the mechanics behind the music. She clearly knows and loves its every contour as well as any cellist...Neither Podger nor I would advocate that you banish your Rostropovich, Casals or Fournier, but anyone who loves these endlessly rewarding works should give this recording a whirl.

In Podger’s hands they sound altogether new, not like a higher-pitched copy of the familiar cello works but like something written for her own instrument...Played on the cello, these sets of stylised dances sit companionably with you beside the ballroom floor. Here, on the violin, they drag you up on to your feet and whirl you around. That’s partly to do with the buoyancy of Podger’s playing, full of agile twists and turns, and partly because some movements naturally flow faster on the violin.