Volume 27 Issue 3 - December 2021 / January 2022

DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED
DAVID OLDS
For the past month or so I’ve been
immersing myself in new cello recordings.
Some of the repertoire selections are
old friends, some new to me and some
new to the world. Benedict Kloeckner: J.S.
Bach – 6 Suites for Cello Solo (Brilliant
Classics 96403 naxosdirect.com/search/
bri96403) encompasses the old and the new
brilliantly, with striking performances of the
suites interspersed with miniatures he has commissioned that “can
be seen as a response to the challenges of the present [pandemic]
in interaction with the Bach suites.” Kloeckner’s Bach, idiomatic
contemporary interpretations on a modern instrument, ranges from
breakneck speed such as in the Prelude of the first suite to thoughtful
and contemplative pacing in the Sarabande of the second; sometimes
playful, but always carefully considered, with tasteful ornamentations
and occasional surprising rubato passages, such as in the Bourée of
the third suite. What makes this 3CD set special though is the new
works and how they bridge and complement the original suites. The
composers represent an international spectrum: José L. Elizondo
(Mexico), Elena Kats-Chernin (Australia), Bongani Ndodana-Breen
(South Africa), Éric Tanguy (France), Geoffrey Gordon (USA) and Dai
Fujikura (Japan).
My first few times through the set I simply let the CDs play and
enjoyed the commissions as interludes, kind of palette cleansers,
before rushing into the next Bach suite. Sometime later however, I
listened to the six miniatures in isolation and was pleasantly surprised
to find that they made a satisfying suite themselves. Elizondo’s Under
the Starlit Sky of the Rhine specifically references the sixth suite,
albeit in passing, and pays tribute to the landscape of Kloeckner’s
home region, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. In I Am Cello, Kats-
Chernin compares the slow opening to the blossoming of a flower and
describes the lyrical miniature as “almost a song.” Ndodana-Breen,
who had an active role in Toronto’s contemporary music scene in the
early 2000s, says that Soweto Cello Riffs combines elements of
Afropop and South African jazz, although not overtly. Tanguy’s In
Between “addresses how emotions during the pandemic have vacillated
constantly between uncertainty and hope.” In Gordon’s Nes
qu’on porroit, from Machaud’s song “It is no more possible to count
the stars […] than it is to imagine or conceive of the great desire I have
to see you.” The composer says he was thinking of past pandemics
– Black Death, Italian Plague, Spanish Flu – in relation to COVID-19.
Although most of these new works make little direct use of Bach’s
material, coming full circle Fujikura’s Sweet Suites opens with echoes
of the prelude of the sixth Bach suite, but in a minor key, and after
brief hints at other movements, dissolves into a quiet and lyrical coda
which rises and fades away into the ether. Kloeckner and his
colleagues have provided a beautiful new take on Bach’s masterpieces.
Young South Korean-American cellist Jonah
Kim begins Approaching Autumn (Delos
delosmusic.com/recording/approachingautumn)
with what I feel is the most
important solo cello work of the first half of
the 20th century and perhaps the most
significant contribution to the genre since
Bach, Zoltan Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello
Op.8 from 1915. In his very personal introduction
to the disc, Kim tells us that he considers Janos Starker one of
his biggest musical influences. He started corresponding with Starker
when he was seven years old after hearing Starker’s Delos recording of
the Kodály sonata and later was able to study with him. Starker had
impeccable Kodály credentials having first played the solo sonata for
the composer when his was 15 in his (and Kodály’s) homeland,
Hungary, and then again in 1967 shortly before Kodály’s death. After
that performance Kodály told Starker: “If you correct the ritard in the
third movement, it will be the Bible performance.” Starker recorded
the work four times, the last in 1970 and it is this one that later
appeared on the Delos release. So may we assume the correction was
made? At any rate, Kim’s own performance is outstanding – big,
brash and gritty as called for in the outer movements; sensitive and
lyrical in the Adagio (con gran espressione) – and his technique in
this extremely challenging work is impressive. Kim is joined by
pianist Robert Koenig for the remainder of the disc; the one-movement
post-Romantic title work by American Mark Abel (b.1948)
providing a kind of a bridge to Grieg’s Sonata for Cello and Piano
Op.36 which concludes this excellent disc.
Bach was not the first to write for solo cello
and Hannah Collins’ Resonance Lines
(Sono Luminus DSL-92252 sonoluminus.
com) opens with a Chiacona by Giuseppe
Colombi (1635-1694) which predates the
Bach suites by half a century. This sets the
stage for a recital of mostly contemporary
works: two by Kaija Saariaho, the brief
Dreaming Chaconne and Sept Papillons;
in manus tuas by Caroline Shaw, which draws on the Thomas Tallis
motet of the same name; and Benjamin Britten’s Sonata for Solo Cello
No.1, Op.72. The last track travels across two and a half centuries:
Thomas Kotcheff’s Cadenza (with or without Haydn), a 25-minute
work written in 2020 meant to serve (or not) as a cadenza for Haydn’s
Cello Concerto in C Major from 1761.
Listening to this piece led to the realization of how a cadenza – traditionally
a composed or improvised interlude in a concerto giving the
soloist an opportunity show off – differs from a stand-alone work that
needs to provide its own context and development. Collins tells us that
“Kotcheff’s work contains musical nods to the other works on the
album and ties everything together in an energetic and surprise-filled
adventure.” It certainly does that. When listening to the disc before
reading the program notes, one of those surprises was hearing
Britten’s solo sonata, which I consider another milestone in the solo
cello repertoire, quoted in a work “about” Haydn. The notes also give
this a context however. It seems that Britten wrote a cadenza for
Rostropovich for the same Haydn concerto and the result can be heard
in a 1964 recording with Britten conducting “Slava” and the English
Chamber Orchestra (it’s well worth searching out on YouTube).
Collins rises to all the various challenges of the diverse repertoire on
this collection, especially those of the “cadenza” which requires everything
from virtuosic bombast to the most subtle intimacy.
It is fitting that Collins’ disc ends with a
contemporary cadenza inspired by one of
the first great cello concertos because that
leads us to Remembering – Nørgård &
Saariaho Cello Concertos (BIS-2602 bis.se)
featuring Jakob Kullberg. Kullberg (b.1979,
Denmark) has worked extensively with both
these composers and all of Per Nørgård’s
cello writing in past 20 years has been dedicated
to him. The two works by that Danish master recorded here,
however, were written more than three decades ago when Kullberg
was just a child. Between (1985) is a three-movement work in which
the cellist begins in isolation, “unable to unite with the orchestral
sound,” but is gradually able to integrate with the larger group with
the help of four solo cellos from the orchestra. At one point the din
from the larger group even includes the sound of car horns reminiscent
of the prelude to Ligeti’s Grand Macabre. The second movement
sees a gradual integration of the cello into the slow-moving textures
of the orchestra. In the extended third movement, the cello takes a
more traditional role but with a twist: the solo line is based on notes
34 | December 2021 thewholenote.com