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The Romantic Cello Concerto Vol.5: Saint-Saens

£13.60

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Label: Hyperion - Romantic Cello Concertos

Cat No: CDA68002

Barcode: 0034571280028

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 1st September 2014

Works

Saint-Saens, Camille

Allegro appassionato in B minor, op.43
Carnival of the Animals

» The Swan

Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor, op.33
Cello Concerto no.2 in D minor, op.119
La Muse et le poete, op.132

Artists

Natalie Clein (cello)
Antje Weithaas (violin)
Julia Lynch (piano)
Judith Keaney (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Andrew Manze

Works

Saint-Saens, Camille

Allegro appassionato in B minor, op.43
Carnival of the Animals

» The Swan

Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor, op.33
Cello Concerto no.2 in D minor, op.119
La Muse et le poete, op.132

Artists

Natalie Clein (cello)
Antje Weithaas (violin)
Julia Lynch (piano)
Judith Keaney (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Andrew Manze

About

Natalie Clein adds a remarkable collection of Saint-Saëns’ music for cello and orchestra to her impressive discography. Clein first came to prominence when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 1994; it is appropriate that she performs the music of an extraordinary child prodigy.

The First Cello Concerto has always been one of Saint-Saëns’ most popular pieces, Casals choosing it for his London debut in 1905. It is a gloriously playful piece that carries the listener along on a melodic and emotional rollercoaster, from the jaunty opening to the eloquence of the second movement minuet, with a persistent yearning threading its way throughout.

The Second Concerto will be less familiar to listeners. The soloist for whom it was written, Joseph Hollman, was an energetic, muscular player and Saint-Saëns seems here to turn his back on the suave style of the first concerto. When Saint-Saëns’ pupil and friend Gabriel Fauré chose the concerto as a Conservatoire test piece, the composer was duly grateful, but admitted ‘it will never be as well known as the first; it’s too difficult’. This it certainly is, with many solo passages, huge leaps and runs that require two staves to accommodate them, and a large amount of doublestopping.

Natalie Clein meets these challenges with marvellous technique, musicianship and the passion for which she has become so well known.

--

The Europadisc Review

Saint-Saëns's two cello concertos are separated not just by three decades but by their very different characters and musical fortunes. The First Concerto (1872) has long been one of his most popular works, its fresh tunefulness winning over admirers ever since its première as part of the rebirth of French music in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. The Second Concerto, with its much tougher musical demands, has been less frequently programmed over the years: a pity, as it contains compelling and skillfully realised ideas, as well as a similar satisfyingly cyclical structure. Even though couplings of the two concertos are not as rare as they used to be, this latest addition to Hyperion's Romantic Cello Concerto series is still a welcome one, especially as it includes three shorter works to encompass all of Saint-Saëns's music for cello and orchestra.

Soloist Natalie Clein is in fine form, lithe and athletic, and it helps enormously that the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Andrew Manze, a violinist himself, who understands not only how stringed instruments breathe but also how to make the composer's beautifully orchestrated scores as supple and transparent as possible. The First Concerto receives a lovingly tender performance, the youthful exuberance of the outer movements more than once evoking the music of Mendelssohn, with the more reflective passages raptly beautiful. There's also a classical poise to the music-making, not least in the central minuet-like Allegretto, while the third movement provides an apt culmination without being in the least overblown.

The Second Concerto may on the surface be a sterner and more declamatory work, but Clein takes its formidable demands in her stride, and the Andante sostenuto second section of the first movement is soulfulness itself. When the fireworks really begin to crackle in the finale, Clein is at the top of her game, the virtuosic cadenza dispatched with an ideal balance of sensitivity and bravura. If this winning performance doesn't persuade you of the work's merits, nothing will.

The bonuses include a sublimely sensuous account of the late orchestrated piano trio La muse et le poète (1910), with Natalie Clein joined by violinist Antje Weithaas, and a deft performance of the delightfully gypsy-flavoured Allegro appassionato (1873, orchestrated in 1876). Le cygne (The swan, 1886) – the original kernel from which The Carnival of the Animals grew – provides the programme with a beautifully understated conclusion.

With an atmospheric recording, ideal solo–orchestra balance, and excellent notes from Roger Nichols, this disc is a worthy partner to the award-winning Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos set in Hyperion's parallel Romantic Piano Concertos series.