Various Composers - British Cello Works, Vol. 2 (Lionel Handy; Jennifer Walsh)

Information

• Ethel Smyth - Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 5
• Frederick Delius - Cello Sonata, RT VIII/7
• Cecil Armstrong Gibbs - Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 132
• Benjamin Britten - Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 65

Lionel Handy, cello

Jennifer Walsh, piano

Date: 2023

Label: Lyrita

https://www.wyastone.co.uk/britsh-cello-works-volume-2.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

Ethel Smyth’s Cello Sonata dates from 1887, and though it’s possible to hear Brahms in it – Smyth had met the composer in Leipzig – it’s certainly a distinctive piece. The slow movement is especially impressive, cellist Lionel Handy and pianist Jennifer Walsh catching effectively its air of intimate introspection. The recorded balance favours Handy, to the occasional detriment of Walsh’s delicately expressive playing.

The pair make cogent sense of the jittering rhythms in the opening movement of Britten’s Cello Sonata, though the cello detail can be smudgy in multi-stopped passages. Close miking again handicaps the ‘Scherzo pizzicato’, Handy’s cello making a dry and airless impression. Both players react quick-wittedly to the tricky ‘Marcia’ and ‘Moto Perpetuo’ movements concluding the Sonata.

The inclusion of Armstrong Gibbs’s 1951 Cello Sonata fills a gap in the recording catalogue, and its pithy, economical opening movement has a pleasing fluidity and momentum in Handy’s and Walsh’s performance. Some of Handy’s phrasing here and in the more boisterous finale seems effortful, an impression possibly magnified by the cramped acoustic.

Delius’s single-movement Cello Sonata is an easy work to overheat emotionally, but Handy and Walsh balance out the rhapsodising with a clear-eyed overview of how the piece is laid out structurally. The central section has a wistful nostalgia, while the conclusion sensibly avoids overplaying a sense of bounding exuberance. Paul Conway’s booklet notes are excellent, and those interested in British cello repertoire will find the Gibbs and Smyth recordings here particularly useful.

-- Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine

More reviews:
https://www.thestrad.com/reviews/lionel-handy-british-cello-works-vol2/16262.article

https://interlude.hk/british-cello-works-cellist-lionel-handy-and-pianist-jennifer-walsh-album-review/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/smyth-sonata-in-a-minor-delius-sonata-gibbs-sonata-in-e-minor-britten-sonata-in-c-british-cello-works-vol-2-mw0003900561

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lionel Handy studied cello and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music, as well as with Janos Starker in Banff and Pierre Fournier in Geneva. He was principal cellist of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for ten years with whom he recorded and toured extensively throughout USA and Europe. Handy has also played as guest principal cellist with many of the UK’s leading orchestras, and has played all of the major cello concertos with orchestras across Europe. His extensive recordings has led to many stellar reviews. He has been a professor at the RAM since 1982, and plays on a cello by Fendt (c.1820).
https://www.ram.ac.uk/about-us/staff/lionel-handy

***

Jennifer Walsh (née Hughes) is a collaborative pianist specialising in the repertoire for piano and strings. She studied with Hilary Coates at Wells Cathedral School, and with John Blakely and Roger Vignoles the Royal College of Music. Based in London and Cambridge, she has performed at venues across Europe and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. She has also appeared at  Festivals in Italy, Sweden, Norway, Russia and China as well as across the UK. Walsh is Duo Coach for the String Department at the Royal College of Music. She also accompanies and coaches students at The Perse School, Cambridge and St Paul's Girls School.
https://www.jenniferwalsh.co.uk/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!