Alfred Schnittke Edition Vol.22 Epilogue Works For Cello And Piano

Among Mendelssohn's considerable chamber music output, the works for cello and piano had a special place for the composer. Although he was not himself a cellist, his brother Paul was an accomplished amateur and Mendelssohn likely kept him in mind when composing the three larger-scale works. Following in the footsteps of Beethoven, Mendelssohn continued to move more toward an equal partnership between the two instruments. By the time he composed the D major Sonata in 1843, a true feeling of cello sonata as opposed to a sonata for piano and cello was achieved. This Orfeo album features cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and pianist Jonathan Gilad.

One might be forgiven for initially thinking that this recital featuring works for cello and piano by Franz Schubert, Anton Webern, and Alban Berg was, well, a stunt. After all, aside from their birth in the city of Vienna, what do the three composers have in common? Schubert was the quintessential master of lyrical Austro-German romanticism, while Webern and Berg were two of the three most reviled masters of atonal Austro-German expressionism – the third, of course, was Arnold Schoenberg – and one might think they'd be an impossible coupling.

Many of Liszt’s works were transcribed for other instruments; both by the composer himself and other musicians. These hauntingly beautiful pieces for cello and piano were originally written for piano solo or the voice. They are from the final period of his life and are the product of his old age and his quest for spirituality. Far from the virtuoso brilliance of his earlier works, their intense and romantic melodies express melancholy and desolation, the sparse textures and harmonic instability daringly looking forward to the twentieth century.