Revisions

Steven Isserlis has earned a reputation as one of the foremost cellists of our day. At the same time he has become known for his ingenuity and innovation in programming, something which this disc is the perfect example of. It combines four works for cello and orchestra that wouldn't even exist without Isserlis - all arrangements made at his personal request, and each of them by the arranger of his personal choice. The most radical reworking is the opening piece, an arrangement based on the fact that Debussy at the age of 19 composed a Suite for cello and orchestra. 

All that is known for certain about this suite is that its fourth movement was called Intermezzo, and that this piece has survived in a version for cello and piano. In her imaginative reconstruction of - or rather replacement for - Debussy's original composition, Sally Beamish has used this piece as the opening movement, going on to construct orchestral arrangements of four other Debussy works from the same period, including the piano pieces R�verie and Danse boh�mienne. The two Ravel songs which follow were arranged by Isserlis' friend, the violinist Richard Tognetti in order to supplement the concert programme for a tour that the two were to make with Tognetti's own Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Vladimir Blok's orchestration of Prokofiev's Concertino, which had been left incomplete at the death of the composer, was made as Isserlis was unhappy with the existing arrangement of the work, made by Kabalevsky. The disc closes with the earliest of these four re-visions, film composer Christopher Palmer's orchestration of Ernest Bloch's From Jewish Life, allowing the disc to end with the movement entitled Prayer - 'one of the most fervently beautiful pieces ever written for the cello', according to Steven Isserlis himself. Throughout the programme Isserlis receives the expert support of Tapiola Sinfonietta conducted by G�bor Tak�cs-Nagy.

Bloch: Schelomo & Voice in the Wilderness; Bruch: Kol Nidrei

�Clein's performance [of Schelomo] concentrates, most affectingly, on the atmosphere of deep introspection...thoughtful, subtle and satisfying, well supported by the passionate and spirited BBC Scottish SO...The Bruch, too, receives a lovely performance, with Clein bringing out the different colour of each of the cello's strings and the orchestra effecting most beautifully the transition from sombre to heavenly.� --Gramophone Magazine, September 2012

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - September 2012

�[Clein's] impassioned, sensitive playing finds willing collaborators in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and their former principal conductor.� --Sunday Times, 15th July 2012

�Clein is the cello protagonist in all four works, her range of tonal colour, her animation and her discreet soulfulness proving to be ideal qualities...Kol Nidrei is one of the most beautiful works in the entire cello canon, a factor that this performance conveys in a blend of tranquillity and heartfelt ardour.� --The Telegraph, 27th July 2012 *****

�She and Volkov give a performance of Schelomo (1916) that is very moving, both in its profound sensuality and in the pervasive sense of transience that gnaws at its vision of worldly glory...Beautifully done, [Kol Nidrei] brings the disc to a reflective close. Highly recommended.� --The Guardian, 9th August 2012 *****

�As one might expect, Clein delivers a powerfully committed performance, but also manages to avoid over-indulgence, negotiating the peaks and troughs of the music's volatile emotional language with a clear sense of direction...Volkov brings a welcome transparency to Bloch's languorous instrumentation in the reflective sections.� --BBC Music Magazine, September 2012 ****

�one of the pleasures of the recital is the meeting of minds between orchestra and soloist, each perfectly partnering the other...It's a lovely piece of programming, tenderly performed.� --bbc.co.uk, 22nd August 2012

Bloch: 4 Episodes, 2 Poems, Concertino & Suite Modale

Bloch is of course best known for his �Jewish � works�you can hear this in the finale of the Viola Suite, and perhaps most potently as the finale of the Four Episodes. Scored for piano, wind quintet, and strings, the performance here is wonderfully colorful and alive. Hiver-Printemps is one of Bloch�s earliest pieces, a pair of short tone poems that does exactly what the titles say: offer musical portraits of winter, and then spring. The style is impressionist, the scoring pellucidly lovely.

This is one of those discs that, by virtue of its unfamiliar repertoire, might easily be overlooked, but don�t make that mistake. You�d be missing excellent performances of very high-quality, enjoyable music� --ClassicsToday.com, July 2007

A fascinating and highly rewarding collection, involving two soloists, two orchestras and, in the case of the Four Episodes, scored (in 1926) for a combination of string quintet, wind quintet and piano. The most striking Episode is the well-named Humoresque macabre, while in the second, Obsession, Bloch spiritedly anticipates minimalism with the same five-bar motive repeated two dozen times, in continuous variation. The pastoral Calm, with its shepherd�s pipe, suggests nature, and the closing Chinese evocation is piquantly exotic. The Two Poems are earlier (1905) and are appropriately titled in French, for there is an atmospheric warmth and transparency to the scoring which has influences from both Debussy and Ravel. But perhaps the highlights are the two late concertante works; the charming three-movement Concertino for violin and viola (1948) ends with a fugue which then gives birth to a lively polka. The Suite Modale, with a serene ancient-and-modern flavour, was written in 1956, three years before the composer�s death�an engagingly nostalgic reverie, interrupted by a bright central Gigue. The performances here are excellent, all very persuasively directed by Dalia Atlas; they are splendidly played and given top-quality Naxos sound. A disc not to be missed. --Penguin Guide, January 2009 ***

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