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Dvorak - Cello Concerto / Reger - Suite / Francaix - Fantaisie | Australian Eloquence ELQ4822181

Dvorak - Cello Concerto / Reger - Suite / Francaix - Fantaisie

£9.56

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Label: Australian Eloquence

Cat No: ELQ4822181

Barcode: 0028948221813

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 23rd October 2015

Contents

Artists

Anja Thauer (cello)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Zden Macal

Works

Dvorak, Antonin

Cello Concerto in B minor, op.104

Francaix, Jean

Fantaisie for cello and piano

Reger, Max

Suites (3) for solo cello, op.131c
» no.3 in A minor

Artists

Anja Thauer (cello)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Zden Macal

About

In the year 2015 we should have been celebrating the seventieth birthdays of two uniquely talented women cellists who were both born in 1945, but instead we have been remembering a more tragic coincidence. In 1973, multiple sclerosis forced the English virtuoso Jacqueline du Pré to retire and her German colleague Anja Thauer committed suicide. At that stage Du Pré had already enjoyed almost a decade of fame, while Thauer was still building her career.

At fifteen she went to the Paris Conservatoire on a scholarship, to study with André Navarra, and also took a course at the École Normale. In 1962, against strong competition from 21 other Paris Conservatoire students, she won the Grand Prix. She was friends with the pianist Claude Françaix and her playing of the Fantaisie by Claude's famous father Jean Françaix had so impressed the pianist-composer that he accompanied her in the final concert. His music became one of her strongest suits and she recorded the work some years later, coupling it with Reger's Third Suite for solo cello. At this stage, many fellow students thought her a better player than Du Pré, who studied briefly in Paris with Paul Tortelier around the same time.

In Prague in March 1968 she made the DG recording which makes up the rest of this reissue, and for which she is best remembered - the Dvorák Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic under 32-year-old Zden Mácal. It was a version praised by The Gramophone's Trevor Harvey upon its first appearance, not only for Thauer's expressive playing, but for the many felicities in Dvorák's score so often overlooked in performances of the work.

Thauer's discography is far from large, but it is mostly of top quality and these three interpretations are central to it.

Unaccompanied cello music, even as agreeably consonant as this three-movement Reger Suite in A minor, is only bearable when it is superbly played. It is here, with fine tone and impeccable intonation. […] Anja Thauer is already among the elect as a cellist’ - Gramophone, August 1966 (Reger, Françaix)

Anja Thauer is clearly an extremely gifted cellist both technically and in her character as an artist […] Zden 283;k Mácal … contributes an accompaniment of real character and individuality. […] These two artists in collaboration give us an untraditional interpretation of the concerto in the very best sense of that adjuective; that is, they refuse to accept the way parts of it are conventionally played and give it as if they had never heard anyone else in it before… […] Miss Thauer’s technique is triumphant so the most difficult double-stopping at speed is perfectly tuned and completely assured.’ - Gramophone, January 1969

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