Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943435625
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: Cello Recital
Description
Robert Schumann(1810-1856): Fantasiest??cke, Op. 73Ludwig van Beethoven(1770-1827): Seven Variations on 'Bei Mannern,welche Liebe f??hlen'from Mozart's Die Zauberflote, WoO46 Franz Schubert(1797-1828): Sonata in A minor, D. 821, "Arpeggione" Felix Mendelssohn(1809-1847): Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58 David Popper(1843-1913): Elfentanz, Op. 39FelixMendelssohn-Bartholdy knew both material and cultural privilege, though neithercould adequately explain the phenomenal musical gifts he demonstrated duringchildhood. Brought up in a stimulating intellectual ambience in Berlin, wherehis family moved from Hamburg soon after his birth, both he and his sisterFanny received every encouragement in their artistic and intellectualendeavours. As a boy Mendelssohn was taught by Cari Zelter, who introduced himto Goethe in Weimar, and when little more than a child composed a succession ofworks of misleading maturity, twelve String Symphonies, the Octet, anda concert overture, A Midsummer Night's Dream among them, which, intheir formal precision and melodic genius represent some of the mostastonishing creations of any adolescent composer.Of Mendelssohn's threeworks for cello and piano, two were written for his younger brother Paul, atalented performer, who followed his father by becoming a banker. The earliestof the three, the beguiling yet wonderfully assured Variations Concertantes,Op. 17, dates from 1827, when Paul Mendelssohn was fourteenth. Eleven yearslater, Mendelssohn returned to the medium, producing the first of his two cellosonatas, the Sonata in B flat major, Op. 45, once again for his brother.The second sonata, included here, was written in the final period ofMendelssohn's intense yet prematurely curtailed creative life. Altogether morerobust and imposing than its predecessor, the Sonata in D major, Op. 58is among Mendelssohn's finest creations. Composed in 1843, it received itsfirst public performance in London two years later, played by the celebratedItalian virtuoso Alfredo Piatti and the composer. The jubilant openingmovement, marked Allegro assai vivace, is in regular sonata form, andbegins with a forthright, emphatic motif, not unlike the beginning ofMendelssohn's Italian Symphony. The B minor Allegretto scherzando hasthe light-footed fairy mercurial quality of several earlier works and featuresmuch pizzicato writing for the cello. The G major Adagio developsarpeggiated piano chords as a chorale, upon which the cello reflects insonorous and impassioned recitative, before the Finale, Molto allegro evivace, rounds off the work in heady triumph.Beethoven's works forcello and piano appear in each of his creative phases, beginning with his Opus5 Sonatas in 1796 and culminating in the monumental two sonatas thatfrom Opus 102 in 1815, the first works of his so-called later period. Of histhree variation sets for cello and piano, only the last, included here, fallswithin the new century. In 1801, Emanuel Schikaneder had opened his impressivenew Thea
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
