[1][2] The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars stating "For all its intensity, it is nearly shockingly accessible, even with its far-flung and dramatic sense of dynamics.

This is an album created to be listened to as one work, the individual selections all contribute to a haunting, hunted whole, and don't really exist well outside their framework as such.

[3] Pitchfork rated the album 8.3 out of 10 observing that "The formula is simple: put a piece of Ducasse's text in front of the cellist in the studio, along with a few notes, and let him compose music to match it on the spot.

It panned out, more or less, not because Maldoror was conceived as a series of songs, but because Erik Friedlander can do things with a cello that should have a reasonable listener fearing for her life".

[4] Jazz Review's John Kelman wrote "Maldoror is, quite simply, an important recording of solo improvised pieces, regardless of the instrument; but all the more compelling because it shows a side to the cello that has not been seen before".