Starring William Pleeth.

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Feuermann In Concert

Inspirales

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Starring William Pleeth.

Henri Vieuxtemps’ fiendishly difficult but beautifully melodious Cello Concerto no. 1 in A minor is the central work on this album, which also includes Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto no. 1, as well as his Allegro Appassionato, which is seldom heard in its orchestral guise. All these works are French/Belgian in origin and pioneered by the leading Belgian cellists of the day. South African cellist Peter Martens, who himself enjoys Belgian ancestry, is partnered with Bernhard Gueller, showcasing the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at its very best. “Martens’ cello is one of the most beautiful sounds – a deep rich harmonic wooden stringed singing being. His playing is superb, compassionate elegant phrasing, and flawless technique. His bow knows the exact line between the tender softness and the hard edge, and this extra dimension is masterfully applied to his dynamics. He expresses a full range of emotion, from angst and agitation to acceptance and wisdom.” (Andy Wilding- FOM Soiree)

Directed by Andre Delacroix. Starring William Pleeth.

Inspirales features works written and inspired by the great cellist-composers of the past, from Fitzenhagen and Popper through to Tortelier and Rostropovich. Zori himself has a contributed a dazzling "Carmeniana' based on Bizet's Carmen, and recorded here for the first time. Hailed by the renowned cellist Bernard Greenhouse to have 'all of the wonderful attributes of a young Emanuel Feuerman,'Hillel Zori has distinguished himself by winning coveted prizes in many international competitions, and enjoys a distinguished career as soloist as well as a member of the Israel Piano Trio.

Fascinating music for cellos, brilliantly played, challenging and deeply rewarding.

First, the personnel. Paul Desenne is a Venezuelan composer. He was a founder member of the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra, playing the cello. He is also active in music journalism. Nancy Green is an American cellist. Her discography includes such staples as the Debussy Sonata alongside more unusual repertoire. Each of the two artists has a useful website.

It is unsurprising that, as a cellist himself, Desenne has composed so much music for the instrument. He writes in the booklet, “For many years, I have worked to renew the role of the cello in solo and ensemble composition, stressing ingredients and natural resources that many composers had previously hinted at, such as percussive and tone color combinations.” Of the six works on this disc, Jaguar Songs is a sonata for solo cello, whereas all the other works are written either for three or four cellos. Amazingly, Nancy Green plays all the parts.

This music is derived from, and aims to recreate, the sounds of Latin America. The composer writes that Glass Bamboo Frog Consort “transposes flamboyant Renaissance stretto polyphony to the Caribbean tropical night of insects and spirits.” It’s a very affecting piece. For four cellos, it begins with a gently moving passage in triple time which eventually gives way to a livelier middle section, becoming calmer once again before the end. Quite a few chromatic notes creep in, and whilst the majority of the music lies in the upper reaches of the cello register, there is plenty of variety of texture. The Steve Reich of Different Trains or Violin Phase comes to mind. Pájaro-Guaracha and Kaliguasa, on the other hand, sound nothing like him. I’d have to evoke Piazzolla, but this would be inadequate, as this music sounds like no other I have encountered. Again for an ensemble of four cellos, Desenne describes them as “studies in local Venezuelan genres”. He also writes that the music relates to “Villa-Lobos’ thick scoring for cello consorts”. One immediately thinks of the Bachianas Brasileiras for cello ensemble, but there is more affinity in sound with the ninth in the series, for string orchestra. Each of these two short pieces pulsates with life, highly rhythmic, as you would expect, but very lyrical too, the melodic elements more and more in evidence with each hearing. Kaliguasa is the gentler of the two, with a more sustained high-lying melodic line, but each one is characterised by a virtuoso control of texture, with pizzicato effects frequently used to mark the rhythm.

Anyone wanting a taster of this disc would probably not be advised to begin with Aeroglifos. For three cellos, this is the least immediately attractive work here. The composer describes it as “a nocturne inspired by the hallucinating Kamu Purrui musical ritual of the Kuna people from Colombia and Panama … each player knows exactly when to blow his note within a precise sequence of hundreds.” It features rather more than the others some astringent harmonies as well as effects such as playing near the bridge or the fingerboard. It leads without a break into Pizziquitiplás, also for three cellos, suggesting that the composer is happy for the two pieces to form a pair, even though the second dates from 1989 and is the earliest music on the disc. As its title suggests, this work makes important use of pizzicato techniques. In effect, one of the three voices sustains a cantabile line, made up of short melodic fragments, constantly repeated and played with the bow, whilst the other two voices display a dazzling range of pizzicato techniques as accompaniment. The composer found that the cello could “imitate the spirit” of the quitiplás, “an Afro-Venezuelan form of bamboo percussion in trios”. The work begins in a spirit of boundless energy, gradually becoming calmer and lapsing almost into silence at the close.

The longest work on the disc is entitled Jaguar Songs. The composer again: “In Amazonian mythology, the jaguar represents blood, and also death, or sudden commotion.” Quite so. The first movement begins with rhythmic, drum-like effects, and the whole movement is rapid and bewilderingly varied. The second is a lament for the destruction of the rain forests. It opens with soft pulsing, representing the forests, and leads to more violent music representing chainsaws. The cello imitates an electric guitar in the third movement, very successfully too, and in the fourth evokes the spirit of the Brazilian traditional instrument, the berimbau, whose single string is struck with a metal prong. Then there is the very strange, slithering passage where “friars of the Conquest are … eaten by carnivorous worms that then start to sing and modulate in Gregorian modes.” The ensuing violent dance is delivered with startling virtuosity.

The final track on the disc, Birimbao-Jaguar with effects, is the final movement of the sonata with electronic effects added by the sound engineer, Wiley Ross. The composer writes that “amazingly, the effects seem to express the latent desires of the text.”

The performances by Nancy Green are stunning. She deserves official honours, both for her technical skill and for her faith in the music. And her faith is well founded, as these works are fascinating, engaging, exciting and often very beautiful. They are also superbly well written for the forces involved. The recorded sound is magnificent. I’m happy to nominate this as a Disc of the Month to all those with a sense of adventure. But not for the first time I also want to shout from the rooftops: “Heaven deliver us from composers who write about their own music!”

-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International

Following on from their successful first Cd for Cello Classics, "Jaguar Songs", named Editor's Choice by Strings magazine, Cello Classics are delighted to announce the release of CC1025 - Song of the Birds - Spanish & Latin Cello. Featuring music by de Falla, Sarasate, Piazzolla, Granados, assadó, Ginastera and Casals, cellist Nancy Green and pianist Tannis Gibson give stunning virtuoso performances overflowing with Latin fervour.

Keith Harvey was born in 1938 and is a prestigious member of the cello fraternity. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Douglas Cameron and after only seven years’ study became, at 20, principal of the LPO. You may well know him from his membership of the Gabrieli Quartet or as principal cello of the English Chamber Orchestra (ECO). Collectors of recordings have reason to be grateful, as Harvey contributed many a shellac to Pearl for their transfer projects. It’s rare to find a first-rank performer who is also a serious record collector but in Keith Harvey and Malcolm Binns - they wouldn’t be a bad duo, come to think of it - Britain has two of the world leaders.
 
Harvey has constructed a charming two-disc series of transcriptions dedicated to ‘his friends within’, as it were. They range from the profound complexities of the extensive Bach Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue arranged by Ferruccio Busoni to the affectionate delicacy of Purcell’s Music for a while. One can note with interest and enthusiasm the composers Harvey has chosen to arrange as well as to whom each arrangement is dedicated. This latter group ranges from Henry Mancini through cellistic idols such as Feuermann, Piatigorsky, André Navarra, Casals and Rostropovich to Dinu Lipatti and close personal chums. In most of the 37 pieces he is elegantly accompanied by Linn Hendry.
 
Some of the pieces, it’s true, are arranged by others - the others being Piatigorsky, Heifetz, Kreisler, Fournier, and Luigi Silva - but the vast bulk were arranged adroitly by Harvey himself. Rich portamenti and ripe melancholy inform the playing in Tchaikovsky’s Autumn Song and there’s a hint of a cellistic bumblebee in Yuri Shaporin’s Scherzo. Harvey takes on Heifetz’s scintillating Gershwin arrangements and offers three Nin transcriptions of his own. As befits a connoisseur he dedicates one of them to the violinist Miguel Candela, who made, as Harvey says, some gorgeous 78s. I have his Glazunov Concerto set and it’s terrific - one of the first recordings of it ever made.
 
Appropriately he dedicates his performance of his Paraphrase on Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune to his wife Meralyn Knight, who accompanies on three tracks, but not this one. Her three recordings are noticeably boxier than the others, and are less kind to Harvey’s tone though they’re all very warmly played. He has dedicated Achron’s Hebrew Melody to Raphael Wallfisch and was inspired to arrange it after hearing the tragically short-lived Joseph Hassid’s recording. I’m very glad that he has included Heifetz’s arrangement of the folk song Gweedore Brae. It’s that much more evocative on Brunswick 78 even than on the recent complete Heifetz box set.
 
In each disc there’s one ‘big’ arrangement. The Bach-Busoni is on disc one and Ferdinand Ries’s Variations on Three Russian Airs is on disc two. It’s full of decorative élan, not least for the piano (here, played by Peter Pettinger) as well as suave cellistic lyricism. There’s a blockbuster Paganini brace and two movements from Reger Suites, about which Harvey is rightly admiring.
 
His little notes about pieces and dedications make for affectionate, often amusing, wry reading. He was badly in the wars, medically speaking, not so long ago but has now recovered. He is an outstanding player and a generous colleague, alert to admirable qualities both musical and human. These discs reflect those very same qualities in abundance.
 
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International 

CD 1
Claudio MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Lamento Di Arianna [2:17]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue arr. Ferrucio Busoni [12:41]
Alexander SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
Romance in a Minor arr. Gregor Piatigorsky [2:25]
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Autumn Song [4:08]
Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Russian Maiden's Song [3:54]
Yuri SHAPORIN (1887-1966)
Scherzo [1:59]
George GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
Bess You Is My Woman Now, from Porgy and Bess arr. Jascha Heifetz [3:16]
It Ain't Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess arr. Jascha Heifetz [2:55]
Joaquin NIN (1879-1949)
Murciana [2:03]
Saeta [3:06]
Andalucia [1:55]
Ed POLDINI (1869-1857)
Poupée Valsante [2:30]
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte [6:01]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Paraphrase on Prélude à L'après-midi d'un Faune [8:13]
Henri DUPARC (1848-1933)
Chanson triste [3:36]
Joseph CANTELOUBE (1879-1957)
Bourée Auvergnate [2:23]
Joseph ACHRON (1886-1943)
Hebrew Melody [5:25]
Mario CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO (1895-1968)
Sea Murmurs [2:00]
TRADITIONAL
Gweedore Brae arr. Jascha Heifetz [3:09]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Four Serious Songs - No.3 [3:29]
CD 2
Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
Music for a While [4:36]
Ferdinand RIES (1784-1838)
Variations On Three Russian Airs [12:39]
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
Varen [4:11]
Reinhold GLIÈRE (1875-1956)
Romance in D Major [4:53]
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Waltz [1:48] and March [1:50]
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Mazurka in a Minor arr. Fritz Kreisler [3:34]
Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Etude in B flat minor [4:49]
Nicolò PAGANINI (1782-1840)
Variations On Theme from 'Moses' [7:12]
Caprice Op.1 No. 5 arr. Luigi Silva [2:34]
Ernesto HALLFTER (1905-1989)
Serenade a Dulcinea [5:03]
Pregon; Cuban Dance [2:40]
Max REGER (1873-1916)
Cello Suite in D, Op. 131c - Prelude [5:28] and Variations [7:03]
Erik SATIE (1866-1925)
Gymnopédie [2:17]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Beau Soir arr. Pierre Fournier [2:58]
Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Adieu [2:43]