Offenbach

On 20 June 1819, 200 years ago, the famous composer Jaques Offenbach was born "Jakob" Offenbach in Cologne.

The young cellist Raphaela Gromes, who already received excellent reviews for her first two albums for Sony Classical and even celebrated chart successes, has come up with a very special Offenbach album for his jubilee, having already recorded Offenbach's "Hommage à Rossini "in a highly acclaimed debut.

Then before Offenbach was acclaimed in music theater, he himself had a great career as a cellist and was even celebrated throughout Europe as the "Liszt of the cello". Raphaela Gromes chose solo pieces for cello and piano or for two cellos for this recording. It fills a discographic gap: the last major recording of cello and piano pieces is actually 40 years old. In the meantime unknown or buried believed manuscripts would be discovered. For example, Raphaela Gromes and her longtime piano partner Julian Riem present a virtuoso "tarantelle" composed in Cologne in a world premiere recording. Offenbach's cello pieces are full of rhythmic subtleties and melodic beauties, they let the instrument sing, spray in a good mood, that you can also touch deeply and are sometimes incredibly virtuoso. Among the well-rehearsed pianos for cello and piano are such character and salon pieces as "Danse bohémienne", "Deux mes au ciel", "Introduction e valse mélancholique", "Revérie on board de la mer", "La Course en traineau" as well as "Les Larmes de Jacqueline". In addition, Raphaela Gromes, together with her longtime mentor, the Munich cello professor Wen-Sinn Yang, has recorded the very last of Offenbach's 36 cello duos: The Duo, op. 54, No. 3 in E major, is one of the most difficult and formally, the most capricious of the cycle. The album ends with Offenbach's probably most famous hit, the "Barcarolle".