The Complete Duos / Trockne Blumen by Pieter Wispelwey

Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert

Pieter Wispelwey

The Complete Duos / Trockne Blumen

Format: CD
Label: Evil Penguin
UPC: 0608917720723
Catnr: EPRC 0021
Release date: 27 November 2015
Notify when available

1 CD		Notify when available

Label
Evil Penguin

UPC
0608917720723

Catalogue number
EPRC 0021

Release date
27 November 2015

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Following up on the acclaimed debut to their Duo Pilgrimage, cello virtuoso Pieter Wispelwey and his piano pal Paolo Giacometti continue their exploration of the complete duos by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms.
On the second installment of this 6 CD-journey, they investigate the dark color of the E minor key which pervades two milestones of the chamber genre. Brahms’ enigmatically somber Sonata for Piano and Violoncello op. 38 was the first major work for this combination since Beethoven’s iconic contributions half a century earlier. And in his Trockne Blumen variations, Schubert accomplishes a stunning instrumental dissection of a young miller’s hope grown cold after his rejection by “die Schöne Müllerin”; originally intended for piano and flute, the version on this disc is the world premiere recording with a violoncello instead of a flute. Slightly brighter – though not a lot in A minor – is the unusually crafty and unpredictable Sonatina D. 385 Schubert wrote at the age of 19.
Wispelwey and Giacometti have been called “exceptionally imaginative and impassioned performers” (American Record Guide), and their collaboration has spawned recordings rated as “fascinating, provocative, almost perverse” (Sunday Times). The first installment of the Duo Pilgrimage was hailed a “successful launch” (Kulturradio) on account of the “unspoken complicity between two virtuosi (…) who accomplish a sparkling, playful, cantabile account” (Cobra.be).

Op deze tweede halte van hun reis door de wereld van Franz Schubert en Johannes Brahms, komen cellist Pieter Wispelwey en pianist Paolo Giacometti de donkere kleuren van de kleine terts tegen in de twee mijlpalen uit de kamermuziek: de Trockne Blumen Variaties van Schubert en Brahms Sonate op. 38.

Wereldpremière op cello

Oorspronkelijk voor fluit en piano geschreven, bewerkte Wispelwey de Trockne Blumen Variaties van Schubert voor cello. De opname ervan is een wereldpremière en een geweldige aanwinst voor het cellorepertoire. Net als zijn Fantasie - opgenomen in deel 1 van The Complete Duos - is het een onverschrokken en diepgravend artistiek statement van Schubert. Het Lied zelf is in al zijn tederheid en breekbaarheid vol van complexe emoties. Schuberts schrijfwijze is subtiel en de kleinste details zijn zwanger van betekenis. De componist creëert al in de introductie een onheilspellende sfeer, als bij de Fantasie wordt de toon meteen gezet, drama hangt in de lucht. De desolate wereld van de Winterreise voelt nabij. Ontsteltenis en wanhoop zijn de opmaat voor een spektakel dat zal eindigen in gejubel: opnieuw een verrassende Schubertiaanse reis.
De schrijfwijze van de Sonatine in a-klein, die Schubert op zijn 19e componeerde, is eenvoudig, maar alle ingrediënten zijn er: dwalende harmonieën en modulaties, lyriek, drama en charme. De eenvoud is misleidend. De structuur mag dan extreem transparant en simpel zijn, het verhaal is rijk en afwisselend, met weliswaar weinig noten, maar met een veelvoud aan emoties.

Rijk en afwisselend

De mysterieuze, sombere Sonate van Brahms is een klassieker, maar ook een amalgaam van classicisme en romantiek. Een Fuga als Finale, een Menuet na een monumentaal eerste deel, om maar twee van de vele intrigerende ingrediënten te noemen. In het openingsdeel speelt de cello een bijna archaïsche partij. Toch is dit genereuze en hartverwarmende muziek. De gebaren zijn groots, alles is zeer welsprekend en de vertelling is meeslepend. Hoor je de andere delen, gracieus, ongrijpbaar en furieus, dan kun je je afvragen wat er broeide onder de oppervlakte in dat uitgestrekte eerste deel. Achteraf wordt het er alleen maar mysterieuzer op.

Uitzonderlijke artiesten

Wispelwey en Giacometti worden door American Record Guide “uitzonderlijk fantasievolle en gepassioneerde artiesten” genoemd en Sunday Times roemt hun partnerschap dat opnames en concerten opleverde die het blad als “fascinerend, provocerend, haast pervers” beschrijft. Een eerder Brahmsproject kreeg van BBC Music Magazine het label “sensationeel” mee omwille van de “wonderlijke verbeeldingskracht en het brede toongamma”.

Beim zweiten Halt ihrer Reise zwischen Brahms und Schubert widmen sich Pieter Wispelwey und Paolo Giacometti den dunklen Farben des e-molls und somit gleich zwei Meilensteinen der Kammermusik: Brahms Sonate op. 38 und Schuberts Trockne Blumen Variationen.
Brahms Sonate für Klavier und Violoncello op. 38 war das erste wichtige Werk für diese Besetzung nach Beethovens Meisterwerk ein halbes Jahrhundert früher. Mit Trockne Blumen vollbrachte Schubert eine beeindruckende instrumentale Forsetzung der Schönen Müllerin. Im Original für Flöte und Klavier, findet sich auf dieser Aufnahme die Weltersteinspielung für Cello statt Flöte. Ein wenig lieblicher, wenn auch nicht gänzlich in A-Dur komponiert, ist die unvorhersehbare Sonatina D. 385, die Schubert im Alter von 19 komponierte.

Nel secondo volume del loro pellegrinaggio lungo i duetti cameristici di Schubert e Brahms, Pieter Wispelwey e Paolo Giacometti esplorano il colore scuro della tonalità di mi minore che pervade due capolavori della musica da camera. L’enigmatica e cupa Sonata per pianoforte e violoncello op. 38 di Brahms fu la prima opera di rilievo per questo organico dopo gli emblematici contributi di Beethoven mezzo secolo prima. E Schubert, nelle sue variazioni su Trockne Blumen, compie una sbalorditiva analisi strumentale delle speranze di un giovane mugnaio che si è depresso dopo il rifiuto della «Schöne Müllerin». Destinata originalmente per pianofore e flauto, la presente versione è la prima registrazione mondiale con pianoforte e violoncello delle Variazioni Trockne Blumen.

Artist(s)

Pieter Wispelwey (cello)

Pieter Wispelwey is equally at ease on the modern or period cello. His acute stylistic awareness, combined with a truly original interpretation and a phenomenal technical mastery, has won the hearts of critics and public alike in repertoire ranging from JS Bach to Schnittke, Elliott Carter and works composed for him. Highlights of the 16-17 season include a play-direct project with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a performance of the complete Bach suites at Auditorium de Lyon and the City Recital Hall in Sydney, performances of Tavener’s Svyati with the Flanders Radio Choir and two recitals at King’s Place in London as part of their ‘Cello Unwrapped’ season. Pieter will also give series of extraordinary recitals at the Melbourne Recital Centre as...

Highlights of the 16-17 season include a play-direct project with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a performance of the complete Bach suites at Auditorium de Lyon and the City Recital Hall in Sydney, performances of Tavener’s Svyati with the Flanders Radio Choir and two recitals at King’s Place in London as part of their ‘Cello Unwrapped’ season. Pieter will also give series of extraordinary recitals at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part their Great Performer Series, where he will perform the complete Bach Suites, Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano, and the two cello sonatas by Brahms over the course of three consecutive evenings.

Pieter Wispelwey enjoys chamber music collaborations and regular duo partners include pianists Cédric Tiberghien and Alasdair Beatson and he appears as a guest artist with a number of string quartets including the Australian String Quartet.

Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and he has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, Tokyo Philharmonic, Sapporo Symphony, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg. Conductor collaborations include Ivan Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jeffrey Tate, Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Vassily Sinaisky, Vladimir Jurowski, Louis Langrée, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman and Sir Roger Norrington.

With regular recital appearances in London (Wigmore Hall), Paris (Châtelet, Louvre), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw), Brussels (Bozar), Berlin (Konzerthaus), Milan (Societta del Quartetto), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Sydney (The Utzon Room), Los Angeles (Walt Disney Hall) and New York (Lincoln Center), Wispelwey has established a reputation as one of the most charismatic recitalists on the circuit

In 2012 Wispelwey celebrated his 50th birthday by embarking on a project showcasing the Bach Cello Suites. He recorded the complete Suites for the third time, released on the label ‘Evil Penguin Classics’. The box set also includes a DVD featuring illustrated debates on the interpretation of the Bach Suites with eminent Bach scholars Laurence Dreyfus and John Butt. A major strand of his recital performances is his performances of the complete suites during the course of one evening, an accomplishment that has attracted major critical acclaim throughout Europe and the US. “On paper it is a feat requiring brilliance, stamina and perhaps a bit of hubris. In practice Mr. Wispelwey proved himself impressively up to the challenge, offering performances as eloquent as they were provocative” ( New York Times).

Pieter Wispelwey’s impressive discography of over 20 albums, available on Channel Classic, Onyx and Evil Penguin Classics, has attracted major international awards. His most recent concerto release features the C.P.E. Bach’s Cello Concerto in A major with the Musikkollegium Winterthur, whilst he is also midway through an imaginative project to record the complete duo repertoire of Schubert and Brahms. Other recent releases include Lalo’s Cello Concerto, Saint-Saen’s Concerto no.2 and the Britten Cello Symphony with Seikyo Kim and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Walton’s Cello Concerto (Sydney Symphony/Jeffrey Tate), Prokofiev’s Symphonie Concertante (Rotterdam Philharmonic/Vassily Sinaisky.

Born in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Wispelwey’ studied with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam and later with Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in the UK.
Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Rombouts baroque cello.

less

Paolo Giacometti (piano)

Pianist Paolo Giacometti performs all over the world as a soloist and as a chamber musician, both on period and on modern instruments. He was born in Milan, Italy in 1970, but has been living in the Netherlands from his early childhood. Jan Wijn and Gyorgy Sebök were important sources of inspiration and had a significant influence on his musical education. Paolo Giacometti has won many prizes at both national and international competitions. He has played with renowned orchestras under distinguished conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Kenneth Montgomery, Laurent Petitgirard, Michael Tilkin and Jaap van Zweden. Apart from his activities as a soloist, Paolo Giacometti’s love for chamber music has resulted in a successful co-operation with leading musicians such as Pieter Wispelwey,...

Pianist Paolo Giacometti performs all over the world as a soloist and as a chamber musician, both on period and on modern instruments.

He was born in Milan, Italy in 1970, but has been living in the Netherlands from his early childhood. Jan Wijn and Gyorgy Sebök were important sources of inspiration and had a significant influence on his musical education.

Paolo Giacometti has won many prizes at both national and international competitions. He has played with renowned orchestras under distinguished conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Kenneth Montgomery, Laurent Petitgirard, Michael Tilkin and Jaap van Zweden. Apart from his activities as a soloist, Paolo Giacometti’s love for chamber music has resulted in a successful co-operation with leading musicians such as Pieter Wispelwey, Gordon Nikolich, Alois Brandhofer, Janine Jansen, Bart Schneemann and Viktoria Mullova. Paolo Giacometti is a much sought-after musician at chamber music festivals in Europe, Canada and the United States. He has performed in concert halls all over the world including the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Wigmore Hall (London), Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris) and Seoul Arts Centre (South Korea).

Giacometti's impressive discography has been widely acclaimed by the international press. His recordings include Rossini’s complete piano works, a remarkable project that started in 1998 and was completed in 2007. In Rossini’s homeland critics say: "... Rossini has finally found his pianist ...". His recording of the Dvorák and Schumann piano concertos have been acclaimed by Gramophone as "... one of the best concerto disks I have heard in a long while ...".

less

Composer(s)

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Schubert already died before his 32nd birthday, but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Schubert expanded the potentialities of the genre like no other composer before.

less

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

less