Release Date: 01 November 2024
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 034571284446
Composer/Series: Boccherini
Description
Boccherini's cello concertos, some twelve in number, were written comparatively early in his career, all dating from the years during which he toured as a virtuoso. And by the way: what a virtuoso! Presuming that he could play his own music—which I think is a fair presumption—he must have been a truly wonderful player; one can feel it in the writing, as challenging as anything composed for the cello before the twentieth century, at least. (The great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, an avid Boccheriniphile, considered Boccherini to have been, on the evidence of his music, the greatest cellist of all time.)
Featured on BBC Radio 3's Record Review: 'The sheer beauty and virtuosity of the music and the way, as Isserlis puts it, Boccherini's ultra-light scoring, sometimes with just cello and violins, leaves the cellist sharing the same stratosphere as they do – a remarkably translucent and ethereal effect, truly music of the angels. It is a lovely album.'
'Here all Boccherini's virtues are on full display: easy melodicism, harmonic sweetness, exquisite string textures and a personal sound world.' – The Strad
'Isserlis and friends entwine Boccherini's lyrical strands into a felicitous musical conversation: balanced, measured and dully in keeping with his gallant idiom.' – BBC Music Magazine (5 stars)
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Laurence Perkins
Takacs Quartet, Marc-Andre Hamelin
English National Opera Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Steven Osborne
Stephen Hough, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Steven Isserlis, Philharmonia Orchestra / Paavo Jarvi
Steven Isserlis, Robert Levin
Steven Isserlis, Connie Shih
Steven Isserlis, Stephen Hough
Steven Isserlis, Peter Evans
Steven Isserlis, Pascal Devoyon
Steven Isserlis, Peter Evans
Steven Isserlis, Thomas Adès
