[ Sony Classics / 2 CD ]
Release Date: Friday 19 January 2024
Sol Gabetta is one of the best and most successful cellists today, with a remarkable international career as a soloist and highly praised recordings, all of them bestsellers. Her recordings for Sony Classical have received numerous awards, including Gramophone, Echo Klassik and Diapason d'Or.
For this album Sol Gabetta teams up with excellent French pianist Betrand Chamayou, with whom she plays sold out concerts in major concert halls. The album features Mendelssohn's complete works for cello and piano (CD 1) and new, short pieces written by famous contemporary composers Wolfgang Rihm, Heinz Holliger, Francisco Coll and Jörg Widman specifically for this album, all of which were inspired by Mendelssohn's beautiful Lied ohne Worte, Op. 109 (CD 2). The album was recorded at the famous new Philharmonie de Paris.
"We're privileged with a fine tribute not only to Mendelssohn and those inspired by his example, but to two exceptional players on top form." Gramophone Award Finalist 2024 - Chamber
"Gabetta and Chamayou have worked together for almost two decades, and their musical chemistry is readily apparent in the opening minute as the main theme is playfully tossed between piano and cello. With each new variation Mendelssohn adds in new challenges, each of which Gabetta and Chamayou toss off with disarming ease. More impressive still (here and throughout the album) is how effortlessly they inhabit Mendelssohn's impulsive shifts in mood and color. Sample Chamayou's mastery of those dizzying runs in the Allegro con fuoco variation and how both performers bring such agitated energy to the seventh variation, all leading in to a beautifully shaped concluding section that revels in open-hearted lyricism as the music tapers away to its gentle close." The Classic Review
"Soaring through the composer's cello and piano works, and homages by Holliger, Coll, Rihm and Widmann, Sol Gabetta and Bertrand Chamayou make this a rewarding new recording" The Guardian
"What's mild about the cellist Sol Gabetta going full tilt in the happy turmoil that closes his Cello Sonata No 2 or moving our hearts with her melancholy sighs? The florid piano writing in her album devoted to Mendelssohn's cello output is, if anything, even more striking, partly helped by the ear-catching colours flying from Bertrand Chamayou's fingers." The Times
Mendelssohn: Variations concertantes Op. 17
Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 45
Mendelssohn: Assai Tranquillo
Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 58
Mendelssohn: Song without Words for Cello & Piano, Op. 109
Widmann, J: Lied ohne Worte
Holliger: Lieder ohne Worte II, III: (…fern…)
Holliger: Lieder ohne Worte II: V (...sam)
Holliger: Lieder ohne Worte II: VI (Flammen... Schnee)
Coll, F: Dialog ohne Worte
Rihm: Lied ohne Worte
Rihm: Verschwundene Worte