[As a 10-year old violin student, Antoine Tamestit 's initial encounter with Bach's suites for solo cello was "my first and most important musical emotion" and made him want to switch instrument. Cello would have required too many technical adjustments, so he accepted the deeper voice of the viola ("love at first sight") as a middle way. Quicker-speaking strings make the viola more nimble than the cello, and in Tamestit's accounts of three of the cello suites the dance movements are negotiated with real deftness. He doesn't attempt to emulate the gravitas of the cello in the preludes, but he does respect the special aura of the cello in the grainy inwardness he brings to the sarabandes. naive.fr