Rostropovich BACH Cello Suites (2 DVD)

 CELLO SUITES - DVD 1

CELLO SUITES - DVD 2

• Subtítulos: ‏ : ‎ Inglés, Alemán, Francés, Español
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Bruno Cocset BACH Cello Suites

 

CELLO SUITES

 

Wilhelmina Smith PER NØRGÅRD - POUL RUDERS Works for Solo Cello

 

WORKS FOR SOLO CELLO

 

Joachim Eijlander DARK FIRE

 

DARK FIRE

 

Tanja Tetzlaff BACH - ENCKE

BACH - ENCKE

Sonia Wieder-Atherton BACH Cello Suites Nos. 1 & 2

CELLO SUITES Nos. 1 & 2

Alisa Weilerstein BACH

                                                                         BACH

Paolo Bonomini VIOLONCELLO ITALIANO

Hailing from Frescia, cellits Paolo Bonomini offers a survey of 200 years of musical Italy on his Genuin debut release. The First Prizewinner at the 2016 Leipzig Bach Competition performs works by Joseph Dall'Abaco, Luigi Boccherini, Alfredo Piatti, and Luigi Dallapiccola. In terms of the program, we could hardly imagine a more rich and varied overview, and the young, internationally-successful soloists's playing more than fulfills our expectations - from his lean and buoyant sound in the playful and exuberant Baroque works, to his crystal-clear articulation and bold risk-taking in the modern selections. A brilliant and highly promising debut!

Emmanuelle Bertrand JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Complete Cello Suites

Most recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach's six Cello Suites reflect the highly individualized interpretations of the 20th century masters, which began with Pablo Casals’ innovative explorations, recorded in the late 1930s, and continued decades later in the celebrated readings of Pierre Fournier, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others. However, the movement for period style interpretations on original instruments has given players alternatives to the conventional modern approach; the use of gut strings and a Baroque bow require different techniques and produce fresh sonorities, so the possibilities have been expanded substantially. As the availability of such recordings increases, Emmanuelle Bertrand has added her voice to the historically informed milieu, playing a Carlo Tononi cello from the early 18th century, though she is not primarily known as an early music performer and is better known for her recordings of Romantic and modernist repertoire. Bertrand avoids the strict rhythms or mechanical phrasing sometimes associated with early music performances, and instead infuses the music with a mix of her intellect and personality in a spirit of vigorous spontaneity, knowing when to express deep emotion but always cognizant of the dance styles and expressive expectations of the time, including generous ornamentation and an improvisational freedom with a flexible rubato. This double CD from Harmonia Mundi gives Bertrand a rather intimate recording that works despite the noisy acoustics of the Médiapôle Saint-Césaire in Arles.

Wilhelmina Smith ESA-PEKKA SALONEN - KAIJA SAARIAHO Works for Solo Cello

This solo album by cellist Wilhelmina Smith features works for solo cello by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. Both composers belong to a generation of modernist Finnish composers whose work has gained broad acceptance in musical culture throughout the world. While each composer has a clear individual artistic persona, as a group they are known for pushing sonic boundaries. In writing for strings and, in particular on this recording, the cello, Salonen and Saariaho exploit the outer reaches of the technical possibilities for both the instrument and the performer. Wilhelmina Smith is an artist of intense commitment, poetic insight and dazzling versatility. As a soloist and recitalist as well as a collaborative musician and festival director, Smith has consistently advocated for composers with whom she has developed vital relationships, to have their music creatively positioned within an intellectually engaging context and performed with the utmost passion and technical assurance.

Alban Gerhardt BACH The Cello Suites

Like many cellists, Alban Gerhardt says he has been wary of recording the Bach Suites before he was good and ready. Now he has finally done it, with a rider that it was his approaching 50th birthday that prompted him rather than any feeling that he has arrived at a settled interpretation. ‘It can only be a snapshot’, he cautions; ‘this music always leaves room to search deeper and deeper’.

In any case, his performances do not sound like the kind that would ever have become set in stone; they are too personal and spontaneous-sounding for that. Take the Prelude of the Fourth Suite, a fantasia in Gerhardt’s hands in which each subtly changed iteration of the tumbling broken-chord figures seems freshly interpreted, framing freer sections that roam adventurously. Or the Sixth Suite’s teasingly lingering Gigue. Or the approach to repeats that makes each moment of return sound like an enthusiastic decision made right there and then. Movements, too, relate to each other convincingly: when the Fifth Suite’s beautiful Sarabande has drifted drowsily to an end, the ensuing Gavotte is a perfectly judged wake-up; and after the loving caresses of the First Suite’s Prelude, the Allemande is a carefree release.

Gerhardt can sound deliciously at ease in this music, whether moving with swift grace through a Sarabande or skipping with jaunty assurance through a Menuet or Gavotte. And his sound is glorious – a silvery tenor register (especially in the high-lying Sixth Suite) capping an overall tone that is rich without ever being overbearing. In the booklet he says that, while he ‘oriented’ himself with Baroque performance, he personally felt a need to marry deep tone to carefully used vibrato and ‘seemingly effortless articulation’. The use of vibrato is certainly well judged, but to my ears the articulation, though imaginatively varied, is often overdone, amounting at times to choppiness. It’s a way of keeping air in the music, of course, but it can also be disruptive and at its worst some may find it irritating. By comparison, Truls Mørk’s 2005 recording (Erato, 2/06) – another one of exquisite tonal beauty – sounds more naturally lyrical, while Steven Isserlis’s Gramophone Award-winner of 2005 06 (Hyperion, 7/07) is also an endless display of eloquently expressed ideas, but with a less interrupted flow. But is his own personal way Gerhardt is no less a master. (Lindsay Kemp / Gramophone)

Leonard Elschenbroich / Alexei Grynyuk BEETHOVEN Sonatas for Cello and Piano

The five cello sonatas span Beethoven’s three creative periods, with the audacious op.5 sonatas dating from the early years on his time in Vienna as a piano virtuoso and aspiring composer (1792-9), the great op.69 sonata is from the period that saw the composition of symphonies 4-8, the violin concerto, Mass in C and the String Quartets op59. The two op102 sonatas are from the cusp of the ‘late’ period, this is the time of the 9th Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, the great string quartets op127 – 135 and the last five piano sonatas.

The cello and piano are truly equal partners in all these works, and Beethoven exploited the full range of the cello placing great demands on the player. The op.17 sonatas from the 1790s was composed for horn and piano. The transcription is believed to be by the composer, or at least approved by him.

Andrei Ioniţă OBLIQUE STRATEGIES

Described in The Times as 'One of the most exciting cellists to have emerged for a decade', former BBC New Generation Artist Andrei Ionita draws together some of the greatest music ever written for solo cello. Ionita gives the world-premiere recording of Australian composer Brett Dean s 11 Oblique Strategies, from which the album takes its name. Dean s work was inspired by the Oblique Strategy cards invented by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to spark creativity. In J.S. Bach s exquisite Cello Suite No.1 a sense of harmony is created using a single melodic line, with mesmerising results. Kodály's pioneering Sonata (1915) is another giant of the solo cello repertoire, and the album concludes with Black Run (2001) by contemporary Swedish polymath Svante Henryson.

Jean-Guihen Queyras BACH Cello Suites

The Bach suites for solo cello are among the most frequently recorded -- and debated -- works in the whole of the classical repertoire. This is certainly the case if only considering the cello repertoire, with cellists often making multiple releases of the suites as their relationship with and interpretation of Bach change over their lives. As such, new releases of the suites are often met with skepticism and cautiousness. This set by French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras proves, however, that there are still new things to be said about Bach, and that there is always room for one more magnificent recording of the cello suites. A student of Baroque cello guru Anner Bylsma, Queyras is heard here playing on a modern instrument. His training with Bylsma is obvious in his approach to the suites, but the modern instrument provides a clarity and resonance of sound that is completely enveloping. Tempos and rhythm throughout the suites is completely organic and fluid; it is far from metronomic playing, but his use of rubato is never overdone and always serves to highlight phrasing and implied harmonies. Queyras uses his own ornamentation -- a common practice in the Baroque -- to great effect. No aspect of his technical brilliance can be faulted; intonation is impeccable, right arm articulation is precise while still maintaining long, spun lines. Queyras' sound is extremely resonant in the lower registers of his instrument while higher notes are delightfully clear. (Mike D. Brownell)

Taeguk Mun SONGS OF THE CELLO

 

 This debut album opens with cellist Taeguk Mun – winner of the 2014 Pablo Casals International Cello Competition and the 2016 János Starker Foundation Award – playing Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello No 1. He is then joined by the pianist Chi Ho Han, another multi-award-winning musician from South Korea, for Beethoven’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in A Major and short pieces by Schumann, Schubert, Rubinstein and Pablo Casals.

Norbert Anger / Michael Schöch STRAUSS | WAGNER Werke für Violoncello und Klavier

Like Richard Strauss, besides the dominating stage works Richard Wagner’s oeuvre catalogue shows several works for other genres, including compositions for choir, piano and chamber music as well as songs. Amongst them, the Wesendonck-Lieder, composed after texts by his occasional muse, Mathilde von Wesendonck, the wife of a Swiss industrialist, have attained special popularity. Very special is the version which can be heard on this recording for deep voice played by the violoncello. Additionally, the ‘Album Page’ and prelude to ‘Tristan und Isolde’ in the cello/piano version by Richard Wagner can be found on this release. These pieces are beautifully performed on this release by cellist Norbert Anger and pianist Michael Schöch.

Julia Hagen / Annika Treutler JOHANNES BRAHMS

Johannes Brahms Sonatas for cello and piano op. 38 and op. 99 Six Lieder op. 86 (arranged for cello and piano). One of the underlying principles of Johannes Brahms’s works is the way the composer creatively engages with a range of musical traditions, from the old German folk song through the madrigal to Viennese Classicism and the Romanticism of the likes of Schumann and Mendelssohn.

The young cellist Julia Hagen is known as one of the most promising instrumentalists of her generation. Most recently she has made her debut with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra as well as with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra at the famous Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

Annika Treutler grew up in Detmold and is now based in Berlin. She studied with Prof. Matthias Kirschnereit at the Rostock College of Music and Drama and Prof. Bernd Goetzke at the Hanover College of Music, Drama and Media. The young artist won third prize at the Montreal International Piano Competition in 2014 national.

Roel Dieltens JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Complete Cello Suites

Performing on Baroque cello and bow, cellist Roel Dieltiens offers his second recording of the Bach complete cello suites on this Et'Cetera album. With so many recordings of the suites available, and many cellists even committing different versions of their own playing across their career, it can be difficult to find anything new and worthwhile. Dieltiens puts the focus of this two-disc set on the effect of each suite created not only by the notes themselves, but on the key chosen by Bach. Such a focus certainly presents a potential pitfall of the playing becoming overly emotional and distorted, but Dieltiens generally avoids this. The six preludes have an appropriately improvisatory feeling and rhythmic freedom while the dance movements typically maintain their rhythmic integrity without being rigid or stodgy. Only the occasional Sarabande (from the Second Suite in particular) becomes a little indulgent with the liberties taken with rhythm and tempo. Dieltiens also incorporates his own ornamentation to various degrees, a custom perfectly in line with his performance practice. Some suites, such as the Fifth, get very little of this extra stylization, while the First and Third suites have many added trills, turns, and mordents. This adds extra interest to Dieltiens' technically superb playing and keeps listeners' ears tuned into what might come next. Et'Cetera's sound captures the rich depth of Dieltiens' playing, but also unduly emphasizes many powerful fingerfalls that can be somewhat distracting. (Mike D. Brownell)

Quirine Viersen BACH Complete Suites for Unaccompanied Cello

Quirine Viersen returns to the cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach on the new label BarcaNova Records. She decided she wants to share with you the development she has gone through after deep inner work. Just as the cello suites were a new journey for Bach, they signify now the same for her. “How you are as a person, will reflect in the way you play the music. My story has changed and together with my journey also the way I play. More than ever before I have a story to tell. “

It was in 2010, just after the birth of her eldest daughter that Viersen recorded Bach’s cello suites for the first time on the label Globe – a beautiful and precious blueprint of her life at that time. “Those recordings are very much connected to the beginning of my new life. Your own life renews through the new life you gave. “

But after the birth of her twin daughters two years later, Viersen found herself in desperation about her life as a professional musician. She was less visible on stage because of motherhood and wondered why she wanted to play cello anyway. The music of Bach proved to be her anchor during this challenging period in her life. “Bach gave me, time and again, life energy. Through his purity he brought me back to my own purity and closer to the answer on my questions. “

So again, she immersed herself in Bach’s cello suites, fascinated by the process that composing must have been for Bach himself. Never had he chosen this form for his musical expression. Due to the enormous development in length and size of the structure, Viersen suspects that they have been an experiment for Bach him- self, possibly even study material. “The further you get into the suites, the larger the intervals and bigger the technical challenges. It demonstrates that Bach was becoming more and more aware of the enormous possibilities. Therefore I think I know that they have been a new quest for Bach, a new journey, a journey of which I have the honour to make it over and over again. Music is never the same, always in motion and therefore there is always a new story to tell. “

Emmanuel Jacques / Maude Gratton GEORGE ONSLOW Sonates pour violoncelle et piano, Op. 16

From his name alone, you might well think that Onslow was an English composer. In fact, André George Louis Onslow – to give him his full name – was a French composer but of English descent. Some sources add a final ‘s’ to George in the Gallic manner. Unlike some of his other French contemporaries, he was fortunate, and financially able enough to pursue a path more akin to Romantic colleagues in Germany, where his music had a strong following as, indeed, it also had in England. He wrote four symphonies and operas, but his principal output was in chamber music. Despite being held in high esteem by many of the critics of the day, his reputation declined swiftly after his death, though it is now being revived largely through the CD medium.

Born in Clermont-Ferrand, the son of an English father, and grandson of the first Earl of Onslow, and a French mother, Marie Rosalie de Bourdeilles de Brantôme, Onslow published his set of three sonatas for cello and piano in 1820. At the time, he was still largely unknown in his homeland, while his first chamber works had already won hearts in Germany. He thus came of age in the shadow of Beethoven, and was often later referred to as the ‘French Beethoven’. The German master had already written his first two cello sonatas in 1796, no. 3 followed in 1808, while the last two were composed simultaneously in 1815, and published two years later. Onslow broke away from the prevailing French tradition, taking his lead from Beethoven, in writing sonatas where both cello and piano were equal protagonists in the musical argument, rather than giving the former a somewhat subsidiary, accompanying role. While Onslow has often been likened to Beethoven, as well as the occasional fleeting references to the likes of Mozart, Haydn, Spohr and Mendelssohn, in some of his music, and certainly on the present CD, it’s not difficult to detect Schubert particularly with his harmonic progressions. There's even a pianistic sophistication in the writing that casts more than a nod in the direction of Chopin. (Philip R Buttall)