Alban Gerhardt, WDR Sinfonieorchester / Jukka-Pekka Saraste SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concertos

 

CELLO CONCERTOS

 

Alban Gerhardt BACH The Cello Suites

Like many cellists, Alban Gerhardt says he has been wary of recording the Bach Suites before he was good and ready. Now he has finally done it, with a rider that it was his approaching 50th birthday that prompted him rather than any feeling that he has arrived at a settled interpretation. ‘It can only be a snapshot’, he cautions; ‘this music always leaves room to search deeper and deeper’.

In any case, his performances do not sound like the kind that would ever have become set in stone; they are too personal and spontaneous-sounding for that. Take the Prelude of the Fourth Suite, a fantasia in Gerhardt’s hands in which each subtly changed iteration of the tumbling broken-chord figures seems freshly interpreted, framing freer sections that roam adventurously. Or the Sixth Suite’s teasingly lingering Gigue. Or the approach to repeats that makes each moment of return sound like an enthusiastic decision made right there and then. Movements, too, relate to each other convincingly: when the Fifth Suite’s beautiful Sarabande has drifted drowsily to an end, the ensuing Gavotte is a perfectly judged wake-up; and after the loving caresses of the First Suite’s Prelude, the Allemande is a carefree release.

Gerhardt can sound deliciously at ease in this music, whether moving with swift grace through a Sarabande or skipping with jaunty assurance through a Menuet or Gavotte. And his sound is glorious – a silvery tenor register (especially in the high-lying Sixth Suite) capping an overall tone that is rich without ever being overbearing. In the booklet he says that, while he ‘oriented’ himself with Baroque performance, he personally felt a need to marry deep tone to carefully used vibrato and ‘seemingly effortless articulation’. The use of vibrato is certainly well judged, but to my ears the articulation, though imaginatively varied, is often overdone, amounting at times to choppiness. It’s a way of keeping air in the music, of course, but it can also be disruptive and at its worst some may find it irritating. By comparison, Truls Mørk’s 2005 recording (Erato, 2/06) – another one of exquisite tonal beauty – sounds more naturally lyrical, while Steven Isserlis’s Gramophone Award-winner of 2005 06 (Hyperion, 7/07) is also an endless display of eloquently expressed ideas, but with a less interrupted flow. But is his own personal way Gerhardt is no less a master. (Lindsay Kemp / Gramophone)

Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra / Myung-Whun Chung UNSUK CHIN 3 Concertos

This release represents something of a milestone: a performance of major, public Korean compositions by mostly Korean musicians, recorded for a large Western label and presumably marketed at least as much to Westerners as to Koreans. Composer Unsuk Chin was a student of György Ligeti, but her style resembles his only in her general orientation toward layered textures and rhythmic emphasis. She writes music in which the relationships between blocks of sound shift over the course of a composition, and although her harmonic world is atonal, her writing is not difficult to follow. The concerto form allows an ideal introduction to what she does, and the three works here are attractive examples (she has written several others). Start with the concluding Su, for sheng & orchestra, from 2009. This is the only work on the program with specifically Asian content (and the instrument involved is Chinese, not Korean), but the way the sheng is treated, generating extremely unusual texture combinations with the orchestra, is illustrative of the whole. The Piano Concerto of 1996-1997 is an extreme virtuoso work easily handled by soloist Sun-wook Kim, while the Cello Concerto (2008-2009, rev. 2013) uses a single note as its center and evolves the music of soloist and orchestra from that note in different ways. In none of the three pieces does the soloist fulfill the traditional concerto role of the individual opposed to the crowd, but neither is any of the three simply an ensemble work with a prominent solo instrument. This is precisely the music's considerable appeal, and conductor Myung-Whun Chung draws out the works' often exacting textures to their full extent. Recommended even beyond circles interested in contemporary Asian developments. (James Manheim)

Alban Gerhardt / Cecile Licad GABRIEL FAURÉ Cello Sonatas

'An arrestingly beautiful survey … this repertoire has been explored frequently and by some of the best, but seldom more persuasively than here … from every standpoint, Gerhardt's accounts of the sonatas seem exceptional, with their assured technical mastery and uncanny depth of insight … magnificent cello playing from Gerhardt, empathetically supportive accompaniments from Licad and a wonderfully natural and atmospheric recording to boot … recommended' (International Record Review)

'Gerhardt and Licad sound as free as air, intellectually confident, full of verve, with niceties of balance and intensities never an issue; a convincing frame of colour, movement and sound in place for every movement, every piece' (Gramophone)

'Both cello sonatas are rolled out effortlessly and with an abundance of colour … other short cello works, the delicious Élégie included, pad out this sizeable, and very satisfying, offering … a super recording' (The Scotsman)

Alban Gerhardt / Markus Becker REGER Cello Sonatas

Alban Gerhardt’s profound musicality and charisma have made him one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation. His ebullient personality is present in all his performances; he is nevertheless passionately committed to the intentions of the composer, and his recordings are always the product of an intense personal journey into every aspect of the music. Gerhardt’s espousal of Reger’s cello sonatas and suites is thus greatly welcomed. Pianist Markus Becker has released twelve discs of Reger’s keyboard music and is an ideal interpreter.

Reger’s cello sonatas and suites demonstrate every facet of this complex composer and individual. The composer’s passionate commitment to German Romanticism and his neo-Classical inspirations are both here: the great influence by Brahms and then the conscious shrugging-off of that mantle in the face of a complex and progressive stylistic advance. The sonatas span the duration of his career and culminate in the late unaccompanied suites, whose ambition to emulate J S Bach is both patent and largely fulfilled. The duo sonatas demand—and receive in this recording—not only a cellist of unusual powers of empathy and bravura, but also a first-rate pianist. This is fascinating and difficult repertoire, wonderfully performed and recorded.

'Exceptionally rewarding … it would be difficult to find more persuasive advocates than cellist Alban Gerhardt and pianist Markus Becker, both of whom are steeped inside the idiom and know exactly how to present the music with cogency and a sure sense of direction. The Four Cello Sonatas provide a fascinating overview of Reger's musical development, moving from the Brahmsian warmth of the First to the highly expressionist and unsettling Fourth. With the aid of excellent sound, Gerhardt and Becker map out this musical journey with wonderful sensitivity … Hyperion's decision to add to this already challenging progamme the Three Unaccompanied Suites of 1914 is fully vindictated by an outstanding performance which once again demonstrates Gerhardt's formidable control of musical line and breathtaking virtuosity' (BBC Music Magazine)