account
basket
Challenge Records Int. logo
Three Cello Suites - a film by Paul Joyce
Benjamin Britten

Jamie Walton

Three Cello Suites - a film by Paul Joyce

Price: € 20.95
Format: DVD movie
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212001196
Catnr: SIGDVD 011
Release date: 06 May 2016
Buy
1 DVD movie
✓ in stock
€ 20.95
Buy
 
Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212001196
Catalogue number
SIGDVD 011
Release date
06 May 2016
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
NL

About the album

The Britten Suites for solo cello have a very personal significance for me, ever since I discovered them in a library during a particularly challenging period in my life – the music spoke in a way which could be described as life-changing and the motivation to learn these works became one which navigated me out of turmoil.
It was many years later, after a long break away from the music, when I felt the desire to record them (at Snape Maltings). It was the last recording I made with my friend and producer John West before he sadly passed away – the first work we ever recorded together was the Britten Cello Symphony, so in a way we came full circle having made a number of recordings in between, including the Sonata in C.
The Suites are so fascinating to study – both technically and musically. The potential of the instrument is magnificently fulfilled with originality and astonishing imagination, yet never vacuously so. The depth and power of this music is such that you can’t help being drawn in and I felt the need to present these masterpieces visually in this film – I hope that this approach helps to create an extra element of accessibility for those who may not necessarily choose to simply listen to the Suites, after all an extremely intense and specialised experience.
I dedicate this recording to my late friend and producer, John West.

Benjamin Britten - Suites for Cello Nos 1–3 & Tema ‘Sacher’
I certainly write music for human beings – directly and deliberately. I consider their voices, the range, the power, the subtlety, and the colour potentialities of them. I consider the instruments they play – their most expressive and suitable individual sonorities ... almost every piece I have ever written has been composed with a certain occasion in mind, and usually for definite performers ...
This extract from Benjamin Britten’s speech on being presented with the inaugural Aspen Award for Services to the Humanities cuts right to the heart of the inspirations for his work – people and occasions. Naturally, his partner, the tenor Peter Pears was a constant focus and impetus for many a composition, as was his festival at Aldeburgh, but Britten was drawn to pre-eminent performing talent wherever he found it. Although naturally drawn toward operatic, vocal, choral and orchestral idioms, the instrumental soloist was by no means neglected. He composed extraordinary works celebrating the very greatest practitioners: the horn player Dennis Brain, the harpist Ossian Ellis and the lutenist and guitarist Julian Bream, amongst others, being beneficiaries of his compositional largesse.
Later in 1964, the same year as the Aspen Award speech, Britten developed the people and occasions theme:
Jamie Walton, May 2013
I’ve always had the advantage ... of needing occasions or performers to attract and inspire me – I mean inspire me in the old sense; that is, the event or player blows enthusiasm into me. After Dennis Brain and Julian Bream, it’s been Rostropovich. ... Rostropovich freed one of my inhibitions. He’s such a gloriously uninhibited musician himself, with the enormous feeling of generosity you get from the best Russian players, coming to meet you all the way. I’d heard about him, and rather unwittingly listened to the wireless. I immediately realised that this was a new way to play the cello, in fact almost a new, vital way of playing music. I made arrangements to come to London and heard him again, and found him in the flesh even more than I’d expected.*
This initial meeting between Britten and Rostropovich was at the Royal Festival Hall in London, September 1960, on the occasion of the UK premiere of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, with the irrepressible Rostropovich at the centre of the action. Shostakovich and Britten were meeting for the first time with Britten accepting the Russian composer’s invitation to sit with him in his box only days after being astounded by the radio broadcast mentioned above. So excited was Britten during the performance that Shostakovich later complained of having sore ribs after being repeatedly elbowed by an astonished Britten. After the concert, Shostakovich introduced Britten to Rostropovich whose years behind the Iron Curtain precluded any thorough knowledge of the English composer’s output. Rostropovich had heard only The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, which is based on a theme by Purcell. Having not even seen a photograph of Britten, and working purely on this baroque-hued evidence, he had assumed
Britten was a composer from a previous century and fell into a fit of laughter on being introduced to him. On realising that this was no practical joke and Benjamin Britten was indeed standing before him, he immediately set about imploring the composer to write something for him.
It didn’t take long for the ebullient, Rostropovich and Britten to form a close and lasting personal and professional relationship. Having no common fluent tongue, they communicated in their own bastardised form of German which came to be known as ‘Aldeburgh Deutsch’ after Britten’s adopted home town. He wrote not only his three Cello Suites and the Cello Sonata for Rostropovich, but also the Cello Symphony and a set of cadenzas for Haydn’s C Major Cello Concerto. Britten, Pears and Rostropovich together with his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, appear to have enjoyed a free and easy friendship, meeting socially, but also performing professionally. Aside from the cello works for Rostropovich, Britten also composed his song set, The Poet’s Echo for Vishnevskaya, and the solo soprano part in his War Requiem was written expressly for her voice. As for the Cello Sonata itself, Vishnevskaya describes it as a portrait of her husband, ‘now high and expressive, now low and grumbling, now gay and carefree.’ His first piece of entirely instrumental music in over a decade, Britten himself accompanied Rostropovich in the first performance at the Aldeburgh festival in 1961. After a short illness in 1962, Rostropovich wrote: ‘Dear Ben and Peter, if you want me to recover completely I ask you to see the doctor whose address is: The Red House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Only he can bring me to life by composing a brilliant cello concerto.’ On receiving the first movement, Rostropovich replied that it was ‘the very top of everything ever written for the cello’.
But Britten was far from finished with the cello, his three Suites for Cello Opp. 72, 80 & 87 once again combined his ‘people and occasions’ mantra. Just as the Cello Sonata was written on the condition that Rostropovich should come to Aldeburgh to play it, so all three suites were not only written for Rostropovich, but also premiered by the cellist in Britten’s adopted home. The Suites are naturally in a direct line from the Baroque collections of dances which, for the cello, culminate in the six suites by J.S. Bach – a daunting prospect for any composer to emulate, but one which Britten, enthused and encouraged by Rostropovich’s interpretations of these masterpieces, was keen to give his best. While infused with ideas, techniques and inspiration from these extraordinary works, Britten does not present us with dance suites as such, but concentrates more on character pieces which emanate from the plethora of particularities in Rostropovich’s awesome technique and protean re-creative ability.
The impact that Rostropovich had on the cello repertoire of the last century can hardly be underestimated. His unique technique, inimitable sound and abundant enthusiasm made him a magnet for composers the world over. The ‘speaking’ quality he imparted and the depth, power and expressivity, his power of communication, most remarkably in the lowerregisterofthecello,openedupallsorts of possibilities. He was also not backward at begging, cajoling and commissioning works, either. The list of compositions written for, dedicated to, or commissioned by Rostropovich is a subject in itself: Glière, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten, Messiaen, Bernstein, Dutilleux, Khachaturian, Schnittke, Piazzolla, Lutosławski and Penderecki are just a few of the most famous names. No cellist, and few musicians of any sort come close to expanding the repertoire of an instrument quite so widely during their own lifetime.
1964 was a busy year for Britten, honours and recognition of all kinds beginning to bring both great glory and often greater demands. Early in the year Britten conducted the premiere of his Symphony for Cello and Orchestra in Moscow, naturally with Rostropovich as soloist. The award of the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society followed and the inaugural Aspen award heaped yet more glory. The Cello Suite No. 1, Op. 72 was composed at the end of this highly successful year.
Like Bach’s solo cello works the suite is formed of six movements, but with the addition of four utterances of the slow, sustained, reflective Canto acting as bookends and binding agent and which informs the musical argument of the movements proper. The Fuga is marked by the sort of implied counterpoint common to the Baroque, and especially in Bach, where the single line is manipulated to create the impression of a number of voices – indeed Britten’s fugue subject springs directly from the opening fugue of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Muscular and full of mischievous wit, the movement melts away with quicksilver harmonics leading into a free Lamento which plots a course between the centres of E and E-flat. The Canto reprise moves on to a pizzicato Serenata which recalls both Debussy and flamenco style. The Marcia continues the Spanish influence with further guitar references, now in a more militaristic idiom, replete with fife and drum. After a third version of the Canto, the Bordone employs themes redolent of Britten’s Violin Concerto and Elgar’s Cello Concerto, underpinned by the drone suggested by the antiquated movement title. The Moto perpetuo begins with an extraordinary flight of quick-fire figuration, before the Canto steps in to temper matters, the two moods struggle before they combine to end the suite.
Just a few months after composing the First Cello Suite, Britten was further lauded, in early 1965, with the highest honour available to a British citizen, the Order of Merit, a special gift awarded by the British King or Queen to individuals of great achievement in the fields of the arts, learning, literature and science – an award for life and which only 24 persons can hold at any one time. At the tender age of 51, he remains one of the very youngest recipients of the honour, alongside Tim Berners-Lee of more recent World Wide Web fame. In December 1966, Britten and Pears returned to Russia to give recitals and spent the Russian New Year in the company of Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya and Shostakovich. By the end of the following August Britten had written the great ‘Slava’ a second suite, just two years after the premiere of the first.
The Cello Suite No. 2, Op. 80 is no mere extension or repetition of the first suite. It is an altogether different beast, cast in five movements and perhaps the closest of the three suites to a baroque model. The Declamato opens in a manner similar to that of Britten’s friend and colleague, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Solemn, weighty and lyrical in utterance, it is followed by the most ingenious Fuga which combines a jagged, mordant subject with almost jocular rhythms, neither of which disturbs the overall serenity of this musical gem. The Scherzo continues the wit of the fugue, but now at speed, while the slow movement’s pizzicato keeps the momentum beneath (and sometimes above) the plaintive, nocturnal bowed melody. The finale is a Ciaccona, and the longest movement of the three suites – a nod to Bach’s mighty Chaconne from the D minor Violin Partita. The glue of the five-bar ground allows Britten to indulge in a devilishly intricate web of ornamentation and an astonishing range of virtuoso variation, before ending the suite on an unexpectedly positive note.
In the Aldeburgh Festival programme for 1976, a few months before his death, Britten makes mention of his Cello Suite No. 3, Op. 87:
I wrote the suite in the early spring of 1971 and took it as a present to Rostropovich when Peter Pears and I visited Moscow and Leningrad in April of that year. The occasion was a week of British music, and our programme ... was made memorable by the fact that both [pianist, Sviatoslav] Richter and Rostropovich joined us ... As a tribute to a great Russian patriot I based this suite on Russian themes: the first three tunes were taken from Tchaikovsky’s volumes of folk-song arrangements; the fourth, the ‘Kontakion’ (Hymn to the Departed), from the English Hymnal ...
The three Tchaikovsky songs are ‘The Grey Eagle’, ‘Autumn’ and ‘Under the Little Apple Tree’. The piece as a whole takes the form of the most subtle variations, cross-currents, reflections and pre-echoes on these three tunes and the ‘Kontakion’, over nine movements, with the actual themes appearing only at the end. There is huge emotional depth in Britten’s musical argument in this suite. Hints of Russian Orthodox chant emanate from the ‘Kontakion’, but the piece hardly speaks of the fervour or solace of religion, but rather moves into darker, more uncertain and even angst-ridden regions. The Lento sets the sombre tone with pizzicato death knells and the Marcia can barely keep a Shostakovich-tinged paranoia far from surfacing. The mournful Canto is a short-breathed beauty, while the Barcarola’s arpeggios seem to hint at happiness, even joie de vivre, before fracturing into panic and the confusion of the succeeding, schizophrenic Dialogo. The Fugue gives the impression of an oasis of relative calm while the Recitativo: Fantastico sounds like competing voices in a terrible dream, the Moto perpetuo only compounding the horror. The slower darkness of the Passacaglia is a momentary respite, before uncertainty returns and we are left with the naked statements of the Russian themes in their simple glory.
Britten’s final work for a solo instrument was also first performed by Rostropovich and composed to commemorate the 70th birthday of the conductor and musical philanthropist extraordinaire, Paul Sacher, on 2 May 1976. Sacher had studied conducting with Felix Weingartner and at the age of 20 founded the Basel Chamber Orchestra which concentrated on the work of contemporary and pre-Classical composers – a novel idea at the time. Marrying Maja Stehlin in 1934, Sacher soon came into vast wealth through her family links to the Hoffman-La Roche pharmaceutical firm (which included Valium among their products) and set about his ambition of commissioning works from the major composers of his day. Listed as high as the third richest man in the world late in his life, he was in a position financially to expect great music, but more importantly he was in a position musically to know genius when he heard it. Hundreds of new works flowed from his enthusiastic promotion of 20th-century music, and the group of composers he encouraged and commissioned from is utterly remarkable: Stravinsky, Bartók, Britten and Boulez are simply the tip of an iceberg which might even have made Rostropovich blush.
For the birthday celebration, Rostropovich decided to invite a dozen of Sacher’s composer friends to compose a work for cello which Rostropovich himself would perform. Lutosławski, Berio, Boulez, Dutilleux, Ginastera and Henze among others were happy to provide. Britten was already seriously ill when asked by Rostropovich to contribute, but nevertheless composed the Tema ‘Sacher’ – a single minute of exciting and absorbing music to
celebrate Sacher’s great contribution to the musical life of his time, and in communion with his fellow composers. Thus, to the very end, Britten remained ever committed to applying his craft and genius to people and to the occasion.
© 2013 M Ross
* Kildea, Paul: Britten on Music (OUP, 2003)
Prachtige film met meeslepende meesterwerken van Britten
In deze prachtige film van Paul Joyce voert cellist Jamie Walton de Cellosuites en Tema ‘Sacher’ van Benjamin Britten uit.

Walton schreef zelf over de Cellosuites: “De Cellosuites van Britten hebben voor mij een zeer persoonlijke betekenis sinds ik ze ontdekte in een bibliotheek tijdens een bijzonder moeilijke periode in mijn leven – de muziek sprak op een manier die beschreven kan worden als ‘levens veranderend’ en de motivatie om deze werken te leren leidde me uit mijn verwarring.”

“De Suites zijn zo fascinerend om te studeren – zowel technisch als muzikaal. Het potentieel van het instrument wordt op fantastische wijze volbracht met originaliteit en verbazingwekkende verbeelding, maar nooit op een wezenloze manier. De muziek is zo diep en krachtig dat de luisteraar er wel in meegetrokken moet worden."

Artist(s)

Jamie Walton (cello)

Jamie Walton was born in Germany before moving back to the UK at an early age. Noted for his rich, powerful sound with purity of tone and emotionally engaging performances he was one of the great William Pleeth’s last students who said of him: “He is a cellist of outstanding performance ability. Combining warmth of tone with a technical command that reaches dazzling proportions, he leaves little doubt as to the success that lies ahead of him - he is a musician of great integrity whose performance give great pleasure” and has already been compared by some reviewers to great cellists of past times with his distinctive sound and clean interpretations marking him out as a true individualist. Jamie plays...
more
Jamie Walton was born in Germany before moving back to the UK at an early age. Noted for his rich, powerful sound with purity of tone and emotionally engaging performances he was one of the great William Pleeth’s last students who said of him: “He is a cellist of outstanding performance ability. Combining warmth of tone with a technical command that reaches dazzling proportions, he leaves little doubt as to the success that lies ahead of him - he is a musician of great integrity whose performance give great pleasure” and has already been compared by some reviewers to great cellists of past times with his distinctive sound and clean interpretations marking him out as a true individualist. Jamie plays on a Guarneri instrument dated 1712.
In the UK Jamie Walton has performed concertos with London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras. He gave his BBC National Orchestra of Wales debut with a Radio 3 broadcast of the Elgar concerto and has appeared throughout much of Europe, the USA, New Zealand, Australia and the UK performing concertos, recitals and giving broadcasts in some of the world’s most eminent © Wolf Marloh venues and festivals. He recently performed the Lutosławski concerto in Poland and made his Finnish debut with Bloch’s Schelomo alongside Bach and Britten Suites at the Riihimäki Summer Concerts Festival before returning for a series of Walton concertos with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Damian Iorio at the Sibelius Hall. As a recording artist for Signum Records he has recorded ten concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, including those of Dvořák and Schumann with Vladimir Ashkenazy. He has also recorded much of the sonata repertoire for Signum to significant critical acclaim, as well as the solo suites by Benjamin Britten which he also made into a film with Paul Joyce, released on DVD through Signum Vision and premiered on Sky Arts.
Jamie Walton is as passionate about chamber music as he is with concerto work and has performed in many of the world’s great concert halls in both capacities, including Lorin Maazel’s Chateuaville Foundation in Virginia through personal invitation. The Washington Post review by Robert Battey after his debut with Finghin Collins at The Phillips Collection said: “Walton is a major cello talent. He sports a particularly strong left hand – dead-center intonation and a wonderful, lithe vibrato that’s alive in every register. Though relatively young, he plays with the dignity and reserve of a wellseasoned artist.” His activities as a player are accompanied by his role as Founder and Artistic Director of the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival which he started in 2009. The festival has exceeded all expectations in selling out every year and is now established as an annual event during the last two weeks of August with its artistic excellence reflected when, in summer 2011, being shortlisted by the Royal Philharmonic Society in the festival category of its ‘Concert Series and Festivals’ award. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, its patron, wrote a work specifically for the festival (for cello, baritone and string quartet), given its world premiere at the 2015 festival. Jamie is also setting up a record label affiliated with the festival, launched late in 2015.
Jamie Walton won a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School in a period which he says remains at the soul of his music making and where his first inspirational cello teacher was Margaret Moncrieff before continuing his studies with William Pleeth. He is a member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and has been elected to the Freedom of the City of London. Jamie was awarded a Foundation Fellowship by Wells Cathedral School for his outstanding contribution to music.

less

Composer(s)

Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten is one most important British composers from the second half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, he focused on opera, a dying genre, at least in its current form. Britten's contributions however, among which Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, managed to remain core repertoire for opera companies to this day. Many of these productions included a role for his artistic partner and life companion Peter Pears. Britten also wrote a number of lieder for this tenor, among which his Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra. Yet, Britten excelled in many more genres. He wasn't even 20 years old when he composed his brilliant Phantasy for hobo quartet and his friendship with...
more

Benjamin Britten is one most important British composers from the second half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, he focused on opera, a dying genre, at least in its current form. Britten's contributions however, among which Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, managed to remain core repertoire for opera companies to this day. Many of these productions included a role for his artistic partner and life companion Peter Pears. Britten also wrote a number of lieder for this tenor, among which his Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra. Yet, Britten excelled in many more genres. He wasn't even 20 years old when he composed his brilliant Phantasy for hobo quartet and his friendship with the legendary cellist Rostropovich led to a Cello sonata, three Suites for cello solo and a Symphony for Cello and orchestra in the 1960s.

Britten never became Master of the Queen's Music, yet he surely had feeling for public sentiments. For example, as a pacifist, he taught his people about world peace through his War Requiem from 1962. Britten was an excellent interpreter of his own work, just like Bartók and Stravinsky. Many of his recordings have been matched, but never exceeded.


less

Press

Play album Play album

You might also like..

Dorothy Howell
Dorothy Howell Orchestral Works
Rebecca Miller
Giacomo Puccini
Puccini Symphonic Suites
Carlo Rizzi
Giacomo Puccini
A te, Puccini
Angela Gheorghiu
Giacomo Puccini
A te, Puccini (vinyl)
Angela Gheorghiu
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann Piano Works
Llŷr Williams
Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Advent Live - Volume 3
Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
Franz Schubert
Schubert in English Vol. 4
Christopher Glynn
Gustav Mahler
Mahler Symphony No. 2 in C Minor
Philharmonia Orchestra
Gustav Mahler
Mahler Rückert-Lieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Kindertotenlieder
Sarah Connolly
Various composers
Après un Rêve Belle Époque – Nights at the Piano
Emmanuel Despax
Johann Sebastian Bach
Music from the Ghetto Ailenberg, Braun, Bruch, Shalit
London Chamber Orchestra
Various composers
Divine Music: An English Songbook
Iestyn Davies