Lorenzo Marcolla

Today, the five-string cello is treated as an exotic and rarely-played cousin of the standard cello. However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was simply one of the many instruments used in the family of bass violins, and was particularly important for virtuosic sonatas and solos.

Lorenzo Gatto's 2014 release on Outhere signals his return to classical performance, following popular successes with his crossover violin group, Trilogy. Yet because Gatto has been firmly grounded in classical music since childhood, recording Beethoven's Violin Concerto and the two Romances is a homecoming only in a technical sense, since he plays with the ease and mastery of one who has spent years living with these works. Accompanied by Benjamin Levy and the Orchestre de Chamber Pelléas, Gatto delivers an expansive and spirited reading of the Violin Concerto, giving the music natural elegance in his clean phrasing and pure tone, and high energy in his virtuosic displays. The Romances are long-breathed and lyrical, and with the orchestra's stirring performance of the Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus, this is a well-balanced program that shows Gatto's and Levy's excellent taste and superb musicianship.