Hyperion Cello

If Saint-Saëns has been called the French Mendelssohn, in a curious turnabout, Joseph Rheinberger (1839?1901) might be called the German Saint-Saëns. Both composers were accomplished organists for whom the instrument played a major role in their professional careers. Both composers labored in the field of opera, neither, however?notwithstanding Saint-Saëns?s Samson et Dalila with much success. Both composers found their main calling in instrumental, chamber, and, in Saint-Saëns?s case, orchestral music.

This 2-CD set puts together Vivaldi's all nine surviving cello sonatas. Vivaldi may have composed more sonatas for cello for all we know, but this is all we have left. And it is a wonderful legacy, although less known than his violin concertos, for example. Compared with the violin concertos, many of which sound rather run-off-the-mill, these sonatas sound more thoughtful and meditative.

The two sonatas for cello and piano by Camille Saint-Saëns stand as bookends to what was an impressively long compositional career spanning more than seven decades. Much of Saint-Saëns' music for cello, including these two sonatas, has been dismissed as inferior and is rarely performed or recorded. Only the first cello concerto, often played by advanced students of the instrument, remains a common occurrence on disc or stage.

Since none of Mendelssohn's cello and piano works were currently available on CD, this disc would have been welcome enough even without the tenderly nostalgic little unpublished Assai tranguillo (written by the 26-year-old Mendelssohn for his good young friend, Julius Rietz) recorded here for the very first time. Lasting only just over two minutes it ends inconclusively on the dominant, as if intended to preface something bigger.

Hyperion is delighted to present the world’s best-loved cello concerto performed by one of the world’s best-loved cellists: national treasure Steven Isserlis. Isserlis has waited 40 years to record this pinnacle of the repertoire, and here with his regular collaborators, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Harding, this long gestation has proved to be overwhelmingly fruitful. Isserlis writes of the concerto that ‘the power of its emotional journey, expressed with Dvorák’s characteristically folk-like simplicity and directness, offers an irresistible mix of the epic and the touchingly confessional’. The combination of emotional power and simplicity is also a feature of Isserlis’s playing, and part of what makes him such a consummate performer of this work.

Steven Isserlis’s award-winning discography spans his diverse interests in repertoire and his musicological enthusiasm, as well as demonstrating his supreme artistry and uniquely beautiful sound, and his first recording of the complete Bach cello suites is an indelibly important addition to the set. Steven writes that ‘the Bach suites are works of such total perfection, such sublimity, that it is well-nigh impossible to feel ready for them’. He has proved more than adequate to the task and this release is a triumphant conclusion to an artistic pilgrimage. Steven’s eloquent booklet notes reveal his personal thoughts about the suites, as well as extensive academic research.

Those elusive qualities of ‘transcendental beauty paired with an enchanting simplicity’, eloquently glossed by Alban Gerhardt in his booklet note, might also be said to characterize his playing in this outstanding new recording.

Shostakovich's Cello Sonata belied the young composer's reputation as the 'enfant terrible' of early Soviet music. Steven Isserlis's praises it as ''the most popular cello sonata of the twentieth century.'' It features on this program alongside two other Russian masterpieces from pre-Revolutionary Prokofiev and Khrushchev era Kabalevsky.