Bach: Cello Suites

“There might not yet be as many recordings of Bach’s cello suites as there are stars in the sky, but there are certainly as many ways of interpreting this monumental music, both in performance and philosophically.“ 

An extraordinary two years for Anastasia Kobekina reaches a new high this September, with the upcoming release of her recording of Bach’s iconic Cello Suites on Sony Classical.

Kobekina’s career has been gathering momentum since her receipt in 2024 of both the Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik Award and the release of the full length documentary "Jetzt oder nie!" through ARD. 

Taking on Bach’s set of six suites for solo cello — an Everest for cellists — she aims to open up "a shared space for interpretation, mine and yours." As with her previous album for Sony Classical, the hugely acclaimed Venice, Kobekina promises a fresh view of familiar music. She performs on period instruments, bringing a historically informed perspective to these iconic works. 

Bach’s Cello Suites represent the music that has accompanied Kobekina the longest and which has performed most frequently. "The dialectic nature of Bach’s suites — their internal dialogue and contradictions — has always fascinated me," says Kobekina. "The language is abstract, architectural, rational, logical, and at the same time passionate, emotional, and deeply personal to the performer."

The works themselves represent the baroque composer’s most inwardly concentrated and revered music. Each consists of a prelude and a suite of dance movements. Adding to the work’s iconic status is the mystery behind its creation. No autograph score exists — only a copy, in the hand of Anna Magdalena Bach, the composer’s second wife — while the work’s original recipient remains unknown. 

Kobekina studied baroque cello with Kristin von der Goltz in Frankfurt. Her singular intelligence is brought to bear on Bach’s suites, which increasingly straddle the realms of classical art and popular culture. Courtesy of her "almost overwhelming sincerity" (The Strad) and her formidable musicianship, Kobekina’s playing reaches beyond technique into the realms of direct communication. "At times," wrote Gramophone of her album Venice, "you forget you are listening to a cello at all." 

Kobekina is a former BBC New Generation Artist and Borletti-Butoni Trust Artist, and signed to Sony Classical in 2024. In February 2025, the German television channel ARD broadcast a four-part documentary about her, Anastasia Kobekina: Now or Never. She returns to the BBC Proms in London this summer, having debuted in 2024, when she also made her first appearance with the Czech Philharmonic under its Music Director, Jakub Hrůša. In the summer of 2025, Kobekina will be artist-in-residence at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Beethovenfest Bonn. 

"She is the embodiment of grace."

Le Monde 

"Kobekina plays with gorgeous elegance and effortlessly wide lines"

Der Tagesspiegel