Cello 2019

Cellist Marko Ylönen has recorded a beautiful double album containing Bach’s six suites for solo cello. On the album, Ylönen wants to emphasize the way in which the different series work together in a dialogue. That is why he does not play them in their numerical order, but creates an experience that takes the listener from the world of passion in the fifth series to the joyful tones of the last sixth series. The clear musical structure and the affect of the musical characters and gestures combine in Ylönen’s performance. His interpretation of the Bach suites tells the listener something invaluable, touching and timeless.

For close to 300 years Bach’s Goldberg Variations have awed performers as well as listeners, through an unparalleled combination of a dazzling variety of expression and breath-taking virtuosity with stupendous polyphonic mastery. No wonder then that other musicians than harpsichordists have wanted to make it their own – pianists, first and foremost, but also accordion players and guitarists, flautists and harpists. Having performed and recorded much of the classical as well as the modern string trio repertoire, Trio Zimmermann began working on the Goldberg Variations several years ago, playing an existing arrangement. But in their own words, the three members – among the leading string players of our time – ‘soon became captivated by the original score and its innumerable beauties and details’. As a result they have jointly prepared a performing version which here receives its first recording. Playing an important part on this album are also the Trio’s instruments – all by Antonio Stradivarius, and featured in close-up on the cover.

Virtuoso cellist Rohan de Saram's new album features four works which have come to the forefront of repertoire for solo cello from the modern era: Arnold Bax's Rhapsodic Ballad is his only solo piece for this instrument. Likely the most often performed of his earlier works, Ligeti's Sonata for Solo Cello has for over a decade been used as a test piece for the Rostropovich Competition in Paris. Dallapiccola's composition was written for the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassado. It is a substantial, powerful work, and an early serial composition of the composer, full of colourful effects and humour.

Rohan de Saram releases an album featuring the premiere recordings of works whch were both written for and premiered by the virtuoso cellist. Showcasing works by Richard Drakeford, Hilda Paredes, David Matthews and, the collection follows on from an earlier release [FHR49] and is devoted to works that were written for and were premiered by Rohan de Saram, his championing of new and unfamiliar music having been a hallmark of a career which now stretches back across six decades. A repertoire that is as extensive as it is varied in overall range, encompassing as this does many of those stylistic traits that have emerged during the post-war era and which here eschew the mutual exclusiveness that has too often proved an obstacle to the reception of contemporary music. A vindication, if such were necessary, of Rohan de Saram’s advocacy.