Cellist Sam Magill presents here his debut release with Navona Records. Cello Music from Austria-Hungary explores works from Beethoven, Schnabel, and Moór, all composers who...

Cellist Sam Magill presents here his debut release with Navona Records. Cello Music from Austria-Hungary explores works from Beethoven, Schnabel, and Moór, all composers who resided and worked in the region. The Beethoven work included on this disc is the challenging Violin Sonata No. 9. Magill, a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, along with esteemed pianist Beth Levin perform from an 1822 arrangement by one of Beethoven’s students, and do so with finesse and austerity. Artur Schnabel’s piece for solo cello was heavily inspired by the work of Schoenberg and Reger. Extreme chromaticism and fleeting mood changes make this work a unique experience. The final piece is the world premiere recording of Emanuel Moór’s Ballade for Cello and Orchestra, which was dedicated to Pau Casals in 1913, but was never published.