DG’s ‘Recomposed’ series was launched 13 years ago with a disc featuring electropop-style arrangements of classic 19th-century orchestral recordings by Matthias Arfmann. If the main goal of the series was to demonstrate the extent to which the revered label was willing to move along with the times, expunging notions of old-school stuffiness, then ‘Recomposed’ has probably served its purpose.

Nevertheless, the musical results have been at best mixed and the series has not been without its detractors. Criticism has been directed not so much at the deconstruction of the classics per se but rather at the basic approach taken towards the material itself: a case of ‘choose a snippet from the original then spin it out into a two-minute ditty with pop chord progressions underneath’. Robbed of its original harmonic and melodic identity, the overriding impression one gained was of tonal music caught in a minimalist web.

Recomposed Bach by Peter Gregson may finally persuade doubters of the series’ artistic worth. This ambitious project sees the gifted cellist and composer reworking all six Cello Suites in a double-CD package lasting almost two hours. Gregson is certainly willing to mix things up. Some movements, such as the Minuets in the First Suite, the Prelude in the Second and the Sarabande in the Third, remain largely faithful to the original, featuring Gregson on solo cello. Others place him alongside four other cellists in a quintet combination that augments the original music’s colouristic scope, sometimes underlaid by a panoply of looped synth patterns.

There’s plenty of invention on display, ranging from Steve Reich-like phase patterns in the Allemande of the First to more Brian Eno-like ambient soundscapes in many of the Sarabande movements. The impression in the latter is of the original as a distant but still-recognisable voice, filtered through several generations of echo chambers. While the ‘looping snippet’ idea forms the basis for some movements, Bach’s phrasing is retained for several others, where a prism-like effect is created via a delicate weave of gently reverberating and floating synth and cello lines.

Gregson has also partly succeeded in imbuing each Suite with its own character, with the Fourth creatively assertive, the Fifth darker and more ominous, and the Sixth affirmative and uplifting. Some will no doubt point to the ever-resourceful and infinitely recyclable potential of Bach’s own music as the recipe for this project’s success but that shouldn’t take away from Gregson’s own very important contribution as its principal performer and ‘recomposer’.