Description
This recording of virtuoso cello repertoire ranges from the work of the Mannheim cellist and composer, Franz Danzi to the British composer Buxton Orr's 'Carmen Fantasy', the cellist's answer to Franz Waxman's famous violin fantasy. Orr's work opens, unusually, with a cello cadenza based on the Fate motif from Bizet's opera, which links the familiar themes, such as the 'Habanera' and the 'Flower Song', used in this dazzling encore piece. The Spanish theme is continued in Gaspar Cassad??'s 'Lamento de Boabdil', which describes the legendary sorrow of the exiled last Moorish ruler of Granada, Muhammad XII, known to the Spanish as Boabdil. Castelnuovo-Tesdesco's 'Figaro Variations' takes as it theme the famous 'Largo al factotum', which appears in various guises with increasing demands for technical virtuosity.