Elgar 85 Cello

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

This formidable release features Inbal Segev performing Elgars emotive Cello Concerto coupled with DANCE, an inspiring new work by Grammy-nominated English composer Anna Clyne that was commissioned by Inbal. On this powerful recording, Marin Alsop conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The cellist Wen-Sinn Yang and the conductor Shao-Chia Lü live and work in Germany. Both were trained at important music o academies in Berlin and Vienna. During the 2016/17 season Wen-Sinn Yang was invited to perform several concerts as artist in residence with the Taipei National Symphony Orchestra. The performances of three concertos in June 2017 were so enthusiastically received that it was decided to release them as live recordings. The wonderful acoustics of the National Concert Hall in Taipei and the amicable dialogue between soloist and conductor have thus been preserved on this CD.