Daniel Müller-Schott / Angela Hewitt BEETHOVEN Cello Sonatas VOLUME 1

Angela Hewitt has taken time out from her impossibly busy solo concert schedule (including her stunningly successful Bach World Tour) to record a dazzling chamber disc with one of the greatest young cellists of today. Daniel Müller-Schott’s rise to fame has been well documented in the world’s press. His fastidious, clean-lined, yet energetic playing is the perfect foil for Angela’s particular artistry.

In their first Hyperion CD together, they present Volume 1 of Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas. Beethoven’s first three cello sonatas astonished his contemporaries with their dramatically innovative qualities. Before he wrote them, there were virtually no works in which the cello fully broke away from its subservient role of basso continuo to become an equal partner to the piano. They are works of extraordinary breadth and grandeur. Writing of the Sonata in A major Op 69, the two artists explain that ‘the dialogue between the two instruments reaches perfection, and demands the highest level of communication and expressiveness’. This is surely achieved in this splendid recording.

'In Hyperion’s first release in a Beethoven cello sonata cycle, Daniel Müller-Schott’s cello seems to hug you like a friendly bear … The disc collects the two Op 5 sonatas and the magnificent Op 69; cherish it most for the players’ teasing exchanges, for Hewitt’s nimble fingers and Müller-Schott’s golden warmth' (The Times)

'The success of this duo partnership is very evident in this first volume of Daniel Müller-Schott and Angela Hewitt's Beethoven cycle. They respond with imagination and flexibility to Beethoven's mercurial changes of mood, one moment tender and reflective, then bold and dynamic … A first class release' (BBC Music Magazine)