Viva! Tat Ming Pair

The "original Brandenburg concertos" subtitle of this release means less than it seems to suggest; the works have nothing to do with Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, which didn't even have that name until many years after the fact. The connection is that Torelli's concertos here were dedicated, in 1698, to Sophie Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg-Ansbach and eventually the leader honored by the Charlottenburg castle in Berlin. Bach's concertos were dedicated to the Margrave of Brandenburg, member of another branch of the Prussian ruling line. The big news here is not the Brandenburg connection but the entirely fresh performances of Torelli's Op. 6 concertos.

The emergence of the cello as a solo instrument at the beginning of the 19th century encouraged composers to explore its melodic and sonorous potential, with compositions for two or more cellos becoming increasingly popular. Bernhard Romberg and Anton Kraft both had personal connections to Beethoven – their works offer inventive timbres, intimacy and substantial virtuosity. The world premiere recording of the sparkling Concertino by Kraft’s son Nikolaus completes an album of unique gems, influenced by Beethoven and Haydn, which helped to usher in the golden age of the cello.

Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabiev (1787-1851) is beyond any doubt the greatest Russian Musician of his generation (before Glinka). Why, then is he not known better ? Well…his life reads like a novel ; an officer with the imperial army, he was contaminated by liberal ideas in Paris in 1812 and got close to the Decembrist's movement, which got him condemned in the 20ies and deported to Siberia a few years later. He there mixes and confronts Caucasian and « white » music (several decades before Borodin espouses the idea) and finally gets back to Moscow in 1843, in pretty poor health.

« Father of the Russian music », the Russian history books keep saying about Glinka. But what do we generally hear from Mikhail Glinka, except the echoes of Russlan and Ludmilla or from A Life for the Tsar (this CD includes the extraordinary danced interludes brought together by Peter Klimov)? The Moscow Chamber Orchestra, who revealed Alyabiev (FUG 539) offers a outstanding selection on this album. Besides well known works like The Kamarinskaïa or Nocnhoj smotr popularised by Chaliapine and announcing, 50 years in advance, Wolf and Mahler, most of it is indeed unpublished or rare work in the disc repertoire that are gathered here: deliciously diverted Italianisms, stunning fantasies prefiguring Rimski-Korsakov, and especially, everywhere, the colours of a romantic genius.

The Concertino for Cello & Orchestra was found in 2016 and established as a separate fore-runner to the later Cello Concerto. The Preludes autographed edition was presented to Marina Tarasova when she studied with Weinberg in 1979.