Britten / Baillie / Thwaites - British Cello - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This New CD By Daniel Mu?Ller-Schott and Francesco Piemontesi Offers Three Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Works That Sum Up Several Chapters of 20th C. History That Go Far Beyond the Merely Musical. Sergei Prokofiev Displays a Masterly Serenity in His Songlike Sonata in C, Op. 119, Composed in 1949. It Makes Evident His Adjustment to the Cultural Politics of the Soviet Union - to Which This World-Famous Composer Had Returned Just Twelve Years Before - But Is Also Tailor-Made for An Exceptional Cello-Piano Duo. Dmitri Shostakovich's Sonata in D Minor, Op. 40 Is No Less Marked By Fate. It Was on the Program of a Concert Tour Given By the Composer and His Cello Partner Viktor Kubatsky in 1936 When Shostakovich Was Put on the Stalinist Index of Undesirables, on Orders from the Very Top. Finally, Benjamin Britten's Sonata in C, Op. 65 Marked the Beginning of a Productive, Creative Friendship with Rostropovich That Was Established, Despite Many a Problem Posed By the Cold War, in Aldeburgh in 1961 When Performed By the Composer and Rostropovich.

The relevance of the piano in Karol Szymanowski's work may hardly be underestimated. During his whole career the composer took the instrument into high consideration. As a result of that, piano music- starting from 1900 with the Nine Preludes Op. 1 and ending in 1934 with the Two Mazurkas Op. 62- runs like a red thread throughout his worklist. Though only twelve of his numbered works are meant for solo piano, we must take into account more than 100 songs with piano accompaniment, several chamber works for violin and piano, the Mythes Op. 32 being the most popular, and the Symphony No. 4 Op. 60 known as the Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra. Andrea Vivanet began playing piano at age 8 and continued his studies at the Conservatorio di Musica Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in Cagliari. He continued at the Conservatorio di Musica Girolamo Frescobaldi in Ferrara where he graduated with honors. He currently lives in Paris, where he pursues an active teaching and performing career.

Busch / Leighton / Cooke - British Music for Cello [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/10/2014