Cello Britten

Samuel Barber's cello concerto has long been considered the weak sister among his three concertos for solo instrument; this release may alter that perception. It was written in 1945, when he was thirty-five, a time in his life when he was still brimming with confidence about his music, not yet on the defensive against attacks received from many quarters, and not yet attempting to bring contemporary elements into his work. Some of the brouhaha was well-intentioned: Americans in the musical world naturally wanted our first internationally successful composer to represent us at our best, our newest and freshest; others decried his conservative romanticism out of personal jealousy at his wide acceptance.

With the appearance of the excellent "les intouvables" collection of du Pre's EMI recordings, a codification which includes a sampling of most everything, why on earth would one opt to glance at the individual selections? The reasons are twofold: First, with the collection one may hear the works together, never fully appreciating their accomplishments individually and that in order to experience the mastery and history of the recordings one might choose to hear them separately. Second, the works as separately released also carry in addition to a complete chronolgic and historic arrangement (see e.g., the last Haydn concerto), the individual recordings coprise additional works meant to be included within their respective final format.

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.

This set brings together for the first time Britten's complete Decca recordings as pianist and conductor in which he performs music by other composers - an astonishing variety of music that ranges from large-scale choral works by Bach and Purcell to Schumann and Elgar, as well as orchestral works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. Solo vocal repertory is generously represented with important works by Schubert and Schumann and early twentieth-century English song. Chamber music features Britten the pianist in partnership with two of Britten's closest collaborators: Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter.

Alexander Ramm is the winner of the Silver Medal at the XV Tchaikovsky International Competition, and has garnered prizes at numerous other musical competitions including the Cambridge International Boston Competition, Beijing International Music Competition and the National Music Competition (Moscow). To this day, Mr. Ramm is the only Russian finalist and laureate of the most prestigious Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki.