I like both really, depends more on my mood.  For the entire collection of suites I'd choose Rostropovich though.

Rostropovich, the metronome, or Yo Yo Ma who has no concept of what a metronome is... I pick neither and supply my own answer.

Not Casals, Fournier, du Pré, or Starker

Video of all of the above including the poll options:



Then there's Mischa Maisky, who wipes the deck with the above on Bach, IMO. Not as rubato as Yo Yo, not as strict as Rostropovich. The most emotionally expressive, while retaining a copy of the song that is still recognizable (hello Yo Yo). Maisky plays this almost exactly how I do, slight speed ups with crescendos on the swells, while still clean and relatively in-time. His speed and volume changes actually make sense compared to Yo Yo. Fournier is probably my 3rd, though he tends to play Bach too slow and it stretches out to near unrecognizability.



If I had to choose between the poll options I'd go for Rostropovich no question. The original Bach style is certainly as Rostropovich plays it, but being a romantic fan, I love playing around with stuff and adding emotion in my playing, so I prefer a romanticized Bach to the original.

I prefer Rostropovich, simply because of the manner in which he plays it, rather than tonal qualities or anything like that. As a piece of Baroque music, I think that Yo Yo Ma takes it too much in the direction of aleatoricism, with his large use of rubato in the opening passages. In my opinion, that is not what Bach or Baroque music is.

^ This.

I eventually bought the Rostropovich. The reason I asked is because it seemed the reviewers on Amazon much preferred the YoYo version (but of course no one was able to explain why they felt YoYo was best in clear or technical terms). YouTube of course helped sort things out for me.

Then there's Mischa Maisky, who wipes the deck with the above on Bach, IMO. Not as rubato as Yo Yo, not as strict as Rostropovich. The most emotionally expressive, while retaining a copy of the song that is still...

That's next for me. Totally agree with you. A modern interpretation that doesn't descend into Yo Yo Ma's gheyness. IMO, Bach is definitely not supposed to sound ghey. I mean, he was the great-great grandfather of Heavy Metal.

I have the "Cello Suites" performed by Roel Dieltiens.

Yo Yo Ma seems to take his time a bit too much compared to Rostropovich. I like both...

Feel free to posts more cheesy X vs. Y polls up. (make it simple instead of complex.) I'm always looking for different interpretations. Honestly, I haven't purchased much classical since the 90s. Seems nothing new or that interesting in past 10 years, but then again I haven't been looking that hard. I feel the heyday of classical recordings was in the past.