Ophélie Gaillard & Pulcinella Orchestra Vivaldi: I Colori Dell'ombra

From well-loved arias to new discoveries, this recording journeys through over a century of opera, with transcriptions for cello and orchestra stretching from Mozart to Puccini and including Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Offenbach. The curtain goes up on some of Ophélie Gaillard’s favourite pieces, which explore human passions through the voice of the cello, that most human of instruments.

Cellist Ophélie Gaillard embraces diversity and empathy in this rich, cinematic album of world music. She rides Korngold’s volcanic, rollercoaster melodies into expressive excellence in the “Concerto in One Movement for Cello and Orchestra,” while her reading of Bloch’s “From Jewish Life” bears a beautiful sadness that feels transcendental.

Cet enregistrement est une lecture neuve, et décapante de ces œuvres bien connues. Ophélie Gaillard et son partenaire sont renversants d'énergie, de contrastes tout en gardant une constante justesse de ton. Ces pages parfois un brin poussiéreuse prodiguent ici un souffle de vitalité confondant. C'est pour moi l'enregistrement "parfait" à mettre d'urgence dans ses références absoules en matière de musique de chambre romantique.

Vivaldi is greatly over-rated - a dull fellow who would compose the same form over many times. Such is the opinion of one of the great composers on the music of another great composer. Given the evidence of the present newly re-released complete Vivaldi cello concertos incredulity can be the only response to this assessment. But then Stravinsky was a man who voiced strong, often acerbic and sometimes outrageous opinions on virtually anything suggested to him. He had probably heard few, if any, of these cello concertos and irrespective would it have made any difference?