Henri Vieuxtemps; Eugène Ysaÿe - Cello Concertos (Alban Gerhardt)

Information

Composer: Henri Vieuxtemps; Eugène Ysaÿe

1. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 46: 1. Allegro moderato
2. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 46: 2. Andante
3. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 46: 3. Allegro
4. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 50: 1. Allegro
5. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 50: 2. Adagio
6. Vieuxtemps - Cello Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 50: 3. Allegretto con moto
7. Ysaÿe - Méditation in B minor "Poème", Op. 16
8. Ysaÿe - Sérénade in A major, Op. 22

Alban Gerhardt, cello
Royal Flemish Philharmonic
Josep Caballé-Domenech, conductor

Date: 2015
Label: Hyperion
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67790

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Review

The sixth volume of Hyperion’s ‘Romantic Cello Concerto’ series lights upon two works by the celebrated 19th-century Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps. Championed here by Alban Gerhardt, the music shows that Vieuxtemps, perhaps more familiar through his seven violin concertos, possessed also a sensibility for the sonority, technical scope and colour spectrum of the cello. If the First Concerto of 1876 was apparently composed without any particular cellist in mind, the Second of a couple of years later was conceived for Joseph Servais (1850 85), whose father François (1807 66) was responsible for putting the Belgian cello school on the map much as Vieuxtemps did for the violin. If the two cello concertos are not perhaps as exploratory in terms of technique and structure as some of Vieuxtemps’s violin concertos, they certainly know their way round the cello and are characterised by strength of ideas, a supple expressiveness and a sure dramatic instinct. So much so that it is hard to see why they have not entered the mainstream repertoire in the same way as, say, the Saint-Saëns concertos have.

Heinrich Schiff made the first recording of the Vieuxtemps concertos back in the 1980s, since when nobody else seems to have risen to the challenge until now; but these performances by Gerhardt with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic under Josep Caballé-Domenech never fail to hold one’s attention. The fill-ups are by the Vieuxtemps pupil Eugène Ysaÿe – more cello music by a violinist but in the Méditation and Sérénade revealing a confident, alluring touch.

-- Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.classical-music.com/vieuxtemps-concerto-review-may15
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Mar/Vieuxtemps_CCs_CDA67790.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Apr/Vieuxtemps_CCs_CDA67790.htm
http://www.classicfm.com/discover/album-reviews/vieuxtemps-cello-concertos-alban-gerhardt/#5U2qhxDd1FMgMjSF.97
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalcdreviews/11376382/Vieuxtemps-Cello-Concertos-Nos-1-and-2-Royal-Flemish-Philharmonic-review-gorgeous.html
http://audaud.com/2015/02/vieuxtemps-cello-concerto-no-1-in-a-minor-ysaye-meditation-in-b-minor-poeme-serenade-in-a-major-alban-gerhardt-cello-royal-flemish-philharmonic-josep-c/
http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-romantic-cello-concerto-vol-6-vieuxtemps-ysa%C3%BFe-mw0002810464

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Henri Vieuxtemps (17 February 1820 – 6 June 1881) was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century. The bulk of Vieuxtemps's compositions were for his own instrument, including seven concertos and a variety of short salon pieces. He is also known for playing upon what is now known as the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu, built in 1741, a violin of superior workmanship. The instrument was later played by noted violin masters like Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Vieuxtemps

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Eugène Ysaÿe (16 July 1858 – 12 May 1931) was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar". As a violinist, Ysaÿe was a great interpreter of late Romantic and early modern composers and also was admired for his Bach and Beethoven interpretations. His technique was brilliant and finely honed, and in this respect he is the first modern violinist, whose technique was without the shortcomings of some earlier artists. As a composer, his most famous work is the six Sonatas for Solo Violin Op. 27.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ysa%C3%BFe

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Alban Gerhardt (born 1969 in Berlin) is a German cellist, whose father, Axel Gerhardt, was a second violinist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for over 40 years. He studied with  Markus Nyikos, who he credits with much of his success. Gerhardt won top prizes in several competitions in the early 1990s. Gerhardt has won three ECHO Klassik Awards, ICMA and MIDEM Classic awards, as well as BBC Music Magazine Award in 2015. He has made several commercial records for Hyperion and Chandos Records. He plays a cello made by Matteo Gofriller in 1710; the instrument previously belonged to Benito Mussolini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_Gerhardt

http://albangerhardt.com/

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