A modern cello is used in each of these sets, neither of which makes any special claim to 'authenticity' but the performances are materially different. In the Prelude of the First Suite Kirshbaum plays the tenth and twelfth semiquavers of bar 26 (c1'40''), both Bs, as natural and flat respectively—which is what Anna Magdalena's manuscript shows whereas Rosen is not the first to play them both as flats. Kirshbaum stresses the second beat of the first bar (and other comparable ones) of the Sarabande of the same Suite; Rosen misses the point. He also seems to have missed that relating to trills, f which he doggedly—and with irritating clarity—begins on the main note throughout, Kirshbaum gets them right but by the time he reaches the Fourth Suite some of them become mysteriously urngekehrt. Why 'mysteriously'? Because he is patently well enough informed in baroque performance practice to exercise his freedom to embellish by adding ornaments here and there and indulging in the occasional touch of diminution, as in the final bar of the repeat of the first section of the second Bourree (3'07''). Yet he refuses the invitations to add appoggiaturas in the opening section of the Prelude of the Fifth Suite, readily accepted by lutenists.
Kirshbaum's are nevertheless wonderfully eloquent readings, with flowing, nuanced lines and always with a sense of purpose that is not always apparent with Rosen compare, for instance, their accounts of the Prelude of the Fourth Suite through which Rosen plods laboriously whilst Kirshbaum imparts a sense of forward movement and gives it overall shape. Rosen's view of the works is somewhat romantic, with numerous slow tempos that prompt one to wonder whether there has been a voltage drop in one's area, overlong pauses such as that at 1'23'' in the Prelude of the First Suite, and an occasional willingness to slide along the aural scenic route from one note to the next. Neither is his intonation as secure, or his tone as unfailingly pure when he digs his bow deep, as Kirshbaum's.
Rosen presents the Suites in order, three per disc, omitting the repeats in the Allemandes of all three Suites on the second disc and the second-section repeat in the Gigue of the Sixth Suite, had he not done so the playing time would have exceeded the capacity of the disc. Kirshbaum, like others before him, juggles their sequence in order to preserve all repeats, a better solution. Rosen's set does not disturb the present 'pecking order', whilst Kirshbaum's joins that of Lluis Claret at the top of the modern-instrument tree but both behind those of Anner Bylsma on a period instrument.'