Cello Sonata & other works

Marbecks Staff Pick 2010

"[Clein] produces an astonishing range of colours and evokes the widest variety of expressive styles. I find it admirable, too, how she's able, in the recording studio, to maintain so much of the excitement and directness of live performance...Julius Drake's expressive playing is a fine match for Clein's outgoing manner." Editor's Choice - Gramophone Magazine August 2010

'The compelling reason for acquiring this disc … is Clein's magnificent account of the Solo Sonata, Op 8. One of the masterpieces of the cello repertory, it opens with massive, declamatory chords, and Clein's depth of tone makes an immediate impact on this well-engineered recording. A must-have disc'(BBC Music Magazine) (BBC Music Magazine)

'[Sonata for solo cello] … Extremely impressive, both in the impassioned rhapsodies of the first two movements, and in the array of folk tunes that are paraded in the ferociously challenging finale' (The Guardian)

"Magically deft, soaringly passionate, without any trace of self-indulgence, Clein conjures a full orchestra of colours and textures from her precious Guadagnini cello...Julius Drake's piano accompaniments are expectedly delicate and caring. Hyperion's warm recording is another joy." The Times, 12th May 2010 ****

The wonderful young cellist Natalie Clein has been a familiar name since winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1994. Since then, she has pursued a distinguished career performing with the most celebrated orchestras and conductors around the world. She has also made a number of recordings-generally concentrating on the most popular cello repertoire. For her Hyperion debut she turns to a composer who is extremely close to her heart, the great Hungarian national composer Zoltán Kodály, who by his discovery and creative use of his folk-music heritage forged the standard by which twentieth-century Hungarian music should be judged.

Kodály made a decision to concentrate on instrumental and chamber music in his composing career, and he seemed to achieve more powerful results the fewer instruments he dealt with. He displayed elegant formal grasp and structural sophistication in his two string quartets and sheer passion and epic sweep in the violin-cello Duo (1914). But above all towers the amazing, ardent, pugnacious Sonata for Solo Cello (1915), the greatest utterance in this most demanding of genres since J S Bach's solo cello Suites. Calum MacDonald writes that 'Had he written nothing else apart from this magnificent sonata, Kodály would still deserve to be accounted one of the greatest musical geniuses that Hungary has ever produced'. Natalie Clein's performance of this highly emotional monlogue is a passionate, coruscating tour-de-force.

Also included are a delightful selection of Kodály's other works for cello; performed here with Hyperion regular and Natalie's frequent duo partner, Julius Drake.