Release Date: 22 November 2024
Label: Etcetera
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 8711801018201
Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental
Composer/Series: Johannes Brahms Cello Sonatas
Description
Brahms composed three movements of what would become the Sonata for cello and piano no 1 in 1862. He added a brilliant fugal finale three years later, shortly after the death of his beloved mother Christiane and in the midst of work on Eine Deutsches Requiem. The originally envisaged slow movement was dropped, perhaps to prevent the work and its imposing outer movements from collapsing under its own weight. Brahms dedicated the sonata to JosefGansbacher, an esteemed voice teacher who had played a crucial role in his election as conductor of the Vienna Singakademie. Gansbacher's qualities as a cellist, however, were questionable. When he played through the sonata with the composer during a small concert for friends, Brahms raged so furiously at the keyboard that Gansbacher could scarcely hear himself. 'Consider yourself lucky,' was Brahms' gruff response to Gansbacher's desperate pleas, after which he continues to pound the keys with undiminished vigour.
To compliment these masterpieces, Amy Norrington and Piet Kuijken devled into Brahms' songs. In Es traumte mir and Ach, wende diesen Blick (op. 57 nos. 3 and 4), G.F. Daumer's sensual verses inspired Brahms to some of his most personal compositions, creating music that speaks of hopeless and unrequited love. The scores are not surprisingly larded with musical references to Clara Schumann, his lifelong but unattainable love. Die Mainacht op. 43 No. 2 is bathed in moonlight and is one of Brahms' greatest evocations of a wanderer strolling alone through an Arcadian idyll.
'The top has a beautiful silvery tone in lyrical writing, but across the range produces a rich tonal quality of real character. Most importantly, the balance between cello and piano is near ideal in denser, more intense passages where the cello can tend to be swamped by a modern piano.' – Early Music Review
'These are interpretations for the mind as well as the heart, and lovers of these works will certainly find something new here. The three song transcriptions serve as beautiful distillation of the whole fascinating project.' – Gramophone
Tracklisting
Musica Gloria, Nele Vertommen, Beniamino Paganini
Luc Berge, Jan Michiels, Inge Spinette, Ilse Eerens
Ryelandt Trio, Linde Verjans, Seamus Hickey
Jonas Seeberg
Bruno Monteiro, Joao Paulo Santos
Hendrickje Van Kerckhove, Eddy Vanoosthuyse, Severine Sierens, Hannelore Vermeir, Hans Ryckelynck,
Nuno Cernadas
Amy Norrington, Piet Kuijken
Zhu Xiao-Mei
Tuija Hakkila; Anssi Karttunen
Ruben Micieli
Roberto Moronn Perez
Nancy Zhou
Marcel Tadokoro
Marcello Fantoni
Konstantin Scherbakov
