Ernest Bloch - Music for Cello & Piano (Raphael Wallfisch; John York)

Information

Composer: Ernest Bloch

• Sonate pour piano et violoncello
• Suite for cello and piano (arr. Gabor Rejto & Adolph Baller)
• Nigun (Improvisation from Baal Shem, arr. Joseph Schuster)
• From Jewish Life
• Méditation hébraïque

Raphael Wallfisch, cello

John York, piano

Date: 2017

Label: Nimbus Records

https://www.wyastone.co.uk/ernest-bloch-music-for-cello-piano.html

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Review

Can it really be that the Ernest Bloch who wrote the Cello Sonata (1897) is the same composer who penned the Viola Suite 22 years later that Gábor Rejtő and Adolph Baller transcribed for cello and piano and that Raphael Wallfisch and John York feature on the current collection? The Sonata at times sounds like a cross between Saint-Saëns and Dvořák, its appealing melodic content lacking the individual slant that marked so many of Bloch’s later works as distinctive. My fondest past memory of the Suite, a wonderful work, is the RCA Victor/HMV shellac set that viola player William Primrose and Fritz Kitzinger made of the original in 1938, a performance of a searing intensity that Wallfisch and York don’t quite level up to, though there’s plenty to enjoy: the energetic start of the second movement, for example, and the deeply mysterious Lento third movement.

‘Nigun’ from Baal Shem (1923) is by far the best-known piece included here, its arranger Joseph Schuster a wonderful cellist in his own right. Wallfisch captures the work’s signature ‘speaking’ eloquence with some effective chordal work and well calculated expressive leaps. From Jewish Life (1925) again takes me back, specifically the opening ‘Prayer’ which years ago was recorded by Gregor Piatigorsky to wonderful effect, the ‘Jewish Song’ possibly the most ethnically infused of all the Jewish works included on the disc, its cantorial cadences unmistakably stemming from synagogue chant. The closing Méditation hébraïque (1924, written for Casals) is similarly intense.

Wallfisch and York do well by this music, Wallfisch never pushing for maximum intensity but favouring a lightly inflected manner that suggests an appropriate sense of improvisation. Altogether a most successful programme.

-- Rob Cowan, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Jul/Bloch_cello_NI5943.htm

https://www.thestrad.com/bloch-cello-sonata-suite-for-cello-and-piano-transc-rejto/baller-nigun-arr-schuster-from-jewish-life-meditation-hebraique/6760.article

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Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 in Geneva, Switzerland – July 15, 1959 in Portland, USA) was a Swiss-born American composer.  Bloch's musical style does not fit easily into any of the usual categories; he studied variously with Eugène Ysaÿe, Jaques-Dalcroze, Iwan Knorr and Ludwig Thuille, as well as corresponding with Mahler and meeting Debussy. Many of his works - as can be seen from their Hebrew-inspired titles - also draw heavily on his Jewish heritage. He held several teaching appointments in the U.S., with George Antheil, Frederick Jacobi, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, and Roger Sessions among his pupils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bloch

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Raphael Wallfisch (born 15 June 1953, London) is one of the leading English cellists of his generation. Wallfisch studied with Amaryllis Fleming, Derek Simpson, Amadeo Baldovino and Gregor Piatigorsky. His vast repertory ranges from 19th century staples by Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Dvorák to 20th century standards by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Respighi and Barber. He has also focused much attention on works by British composers such as Elgar, Delius, Bax, Maxwell Davies, MacMillan, Simpson, and Tavener. Wallfisch has recorded extensively for many labels, including Chandos, Nimbus, and Naxos.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/raphael-wallfisch-mn0002030011/biography

http://www.raphaelwallfisch.com/?page_id=35

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