Sol Gabetta / Patricia Kopatchinskaja SOL & PAT

 

SOL & PAT

 

Lidy Blijdorp JOURNEYERS

                                                                    JOURNEYERS

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.

Matt Haimovitz THE 20th CENTURY CELLO

The sound on this disc is absolutely stunning – and the playing is pretty impressive too: but what about the music? Matt Haimovitz's first DG disc of twentieth-century unaccompanied cello works (1/92) emphasized the relatively recent past, with Britten's Suite No. 1, sonatas by Crumb and Ligeti and only a Suite by Reger from the century's early years. This time about half the disc is given over to Kodaly's amply proportioned Sonata (1915), which also featured in a no-holds-barred account on Pieter Wispelwey's relatively recent disc.
While I can't say that Haimovitz has fully won me over to this work, I am in no doubt that this is how it should be played – with a spontaneity that never lurches into mannerism, and with supreme technical control: the dynamic shading of harmonics and the fluency in passages exploiting opposing extremes of register are such as to make lesser cellists give up in despair. So, even though it is disappointing that this disc brings no previously unrecorded music into the catalogue, it makes a distinguished contribution to an increasingly crowded field.
In 1992 I thought that Haimovitz was rather too flamboyant in Britten's First Suite, but the concentrated forms and predominantly dark moods of No. 3 are finely characterized here, in a reading to rival that of Kim Bak Dinitzen (part of a two-disc set) or any other currently available version. The short pieces by Berio and Henze, whose original versions were part of the Rostropovich-inspired seventieth birthday tribute to Paul Sacher, have recently been recorded (on a two-CD set) by Patrick and Thomas Demenga in the context of all 12 tributes. Once again, however, Haimovitz's superfine technique, and the exceptionally faithful DG sound, make these performances outstanding, and the Berio, in particular, is a small masterpiece.' (Gramophone)

Emmanuelle Bertrand LE VIOLONCELLE AU XXe SIÈCLE

Through these selected masterpieces of the repertoire for solo cello, Emmanuelle Bertrand invites us on a journey to the heart of languages of popular inspiration. When music takes over the idioms characteristic of each culture, pushing back the limits of instrumental technique, reshaping and dismantling the rules the better to express a specific identity, then the cello truly ‘speaks’ and takes us beyond frontiers, where the souls of a people take root.

This title was released for the first time in 2000/11.

Alisa Weilerstein SOLO

The long-awaited solo album from Decca’s star cellist sees Weilerstein revealing and revelling in her technique. The American cellist has attracted widespread attention worldwide for her combination of natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. The intensity of her playing has regularly been lauded, as has the spontaneity and sensitivity of her interpretations. Committed to expanding the cello repertoire, Alisa is a fervent champion of new music and this release is her first solo album.

Calling for left hand pizzicato as well an alternative tuning of the cello’s lower strings, Kodaly’s Sonata was far ahead of the time in which it was written and explored every facet of the cello, revealing what could be done with this instrument.

Many of Kodaly’s works are based upon Hungarian folksongs & dances, and this theme inspires the rest of the album, with works from the in-vogue Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, across the world to the Chinese composer Bright Sheng.

Sheng’s work is based on seven tunes from China (Seasons, Guessing Song, The Little Cabbage, The Drunken Fisherman, Diu Diu Dong, Pastoral Ballade, Tibetan Dance). Golijov’s Omaramor is a musically playful fantasia inspired by Carols Gardel (the Argentine tango specialist); and Gaspar Cassado’s Suite, consisting of three dance movements, quotes the Kodaly work.