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Britten: Three Suites for Cello
Denise Djovic
Atma ACD22524
Steve Bourke: What classical composer
would be daring enough to try to compete
head-to-head with Beethoven? No
one did, really. Brahms felt compelled
to be “the next Beethoven” in his early
years, before finding his own unique
voice.
After the monumental solo cello
sonatas and partitas of J. S. Bach, was any
other composer brave enough to create
music for the cello alone? Max Reger and
Zoltán Kodály both attempted to do so
in 1915, and so began a century of glory
and praise for this elegant instrument.
Superior cello virtuosos Pablo Casals
and Mstislav Rostropovich inspired
more than one modern composer to
make music that was worthy of their
skill, and so it was with Benjamin Britten.
After seeing Rostropovich play
Shostakovitch’s first cello concerto in
1960, he declared it “the most extraordinary
cello performance I have ever
heard.” He immediately began to compose
for Rostropovich, the wonderful
result being the extraordinary music
found in these suites, completed in 1971.
Each is brimming with variety —
upper octave wisps of pleasure followed
by deep musky tones, then a tiny, almost
inaudible, fragile sound creates suspense.
Then a rush of modern harmonies
abruptly shifts the mood. It builds and
expands until your emotions again start
70 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
Software Reviews
by Steve Bourke
and Gerard Rejskind
to anticipate a shift to the next magnetic
feeling. It becomes a pleasant guessing
game to predict which moods, and what
tempos, are about to arrive.
Rhythmic switches are constant,
so much so that I began to experience
the music as a rewarding kind of classical
jazz. Only that jazz element called
improvisation is not present.
Perhaps you admire great musicianship
as well as great music. If that is the
case, cellist Denise Djokic is just the one
to reward you with the professionalism
you require. Benjamin Britten himself
surely had a virtuoso like her in mind
when he declared that he “always liked
to write music not just for performers,
but for people who are close to me
spiritually.”
Denise has been named by Maclean’s
magazine as one of 25 Canadians who
are changing our world. Elle Magazine
describes her as one of “Canada’s most
powerful women.” In her hands the
instrument flourishes. All its textures,
tones and delicacies are hers for the
playing, and ours to enjoy.
And the cello, once scorned by lovers
of the viola de gamba during the mid-18 th
Century, is today an icon of the classical
music world, adored for its tonal beauty
and stylistic versatility.
Harpsichord Music From a Thin
Place
Paul Cienniwa
Balaena WCS 059
Gerard Rejskind: There’s no mystery
why the harpsichord fell out of favor in
the late 18 th Century and was replaced
by the piano. The harpsichord produces
sound by strumming its strings, rather
like a guitar, and it lacked the loudness to
compete with the ever larger orchestras
in the new and bigger concert halls. It
had another disadvantage too. Unlike
the organ, whose repertoire it was
expected to play, the harpsichord plays
each note at the same volume, narrowing
its range of emotional expression.
Though Bach played and wrote for the
harpsichord (or “the keyboard,” which
could mean organ or harpsichord), the
great pianist Glenn Gould argued that
he would have preferred the piano had
he had access to it.
And yet there is something special
about the sound of the harpsichord, even
to our ears so jaded by the infinite variety
of electronic instruments. Unlike the
piano, the harpsichord produces notes
with a discreet fundamental tone, which
is however rich in harmonics. It cannot
be confused with any other instrument.
That very richness, however, make it
challenging to record, and to reproduce.
Pretty much any reproduction system
has difficulty with higher frequencies,
and that goes double for digital. Few
instruments other than the modern
flute have such harmonics, and they’re
a challenge. The result is that many
harpsichord recordings are difficult to
listen to for long, because they trigger
major listener fatigue.
This recording is a major exception.
To capture at once the delicacy and
the richness of the instrument, engineer
Walter Klimasewski used a single pair
of Schoeps CMC 64 microphones, with
neither equalization nor compression.
Avoiding compression and volume
limiting usually means leaving plenty
of headroom, but in fact there is a lot of
volume on this CD. All the bits are used,
yet there is no trace of overload.
Why the odd title? Paul Cienniwa
says that the “thin place” is the threshold