The pieces here are expanded arrangements, largely by Bach himself, of music for solo cello and violin… O'Dette responds magnificently, playing with a sense of total ease - fluent, expressive, sensitively balancing contrapuntal lines.

Bach never wrote directly for lute; his works for the instrument are transcriptions from his preexisting music or were written for the lute-harpsichord (Lautenwerk), an instrument designed to imitate the lute. The A minor Suite, BWV995, Pièces pour la Luth à Monsieur Schouster, is an arrangement of the Cello Suite BWV1011; the Partita in E major is an arrangement of the Partita BWV1006 for solo violin, transposed to F major. The Sonata in G minor is an arrangement by O'Dette of the Sonata in G minor for solo violin BWV1001, modelled after the arrangement of its fugue for lute by Johann Christian Weyrauch, a friend of Bach's.
A direct comparison with Hopkinson Smith's magisterial readings (Astrée) is revealing. He treats the dance in the abstract. His pulse is flexible, his expressive shading copious. O'Dette is determined to restore the dance proper. The rhythmic outlines are sharply defined by a judicious use of staccato bass notes and extensive employment of notes inégales and other Frenchstyle embellishments. That's not to say that O'Dette isn't alive to a more improvisatory quality, especially in the preludes and the Sonata in G minor. But in short, with his readings, the body dances; with Smith's, the soul. Neither approach is superior to the other – it's merely a matter of emphasis.