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Cello Rhapsody Timora Rosler, Cello
Klára Würtz, Piano
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Cello Rhapsody Timora Rosler, Cello
Klára Würtz, Piano
Mellowest and probably one of the best suited of instruments for the Romantic repertoire, the cello is similar to the baritone voice of singers. The violoncello, to give it its full title, is the third instrument in the violin family, ranging in pitch after the violin and the viola and above the double bass. Taking over from the former range of viols, the violin family emerged during the sixteenth century and had come to prominence by the late seventeenth century. The cello soon became part of the group of players in the baroque Trio Sonatas of the time and then came to prominence as a solo instrument in the works of Boccherini and his contemporaries as well as the great cello suites of J.S. Bach. Although neglected by Mozart, Haydn composed successful cello concertos and Beethoven added cello sonatas to the repertoire. But, it is with the Romantic repertoire that the song-like qualities as well as the virtuoso aspects of the instrument come into their own and the cello was to become a favourite solo instrument for many of the composers of the mid to late nineteenth as well as the twentieth centuries. Of the twentieth century´s Sonatas for cello and piano, the works of Debussy and Britten manage to retain the lyricism of their predecessors and combine this with a new and innovative language for the new century. Debussy was born in 1862 and although seen as something of a radical by his peers and teachers, he was able to win the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1884 which gave him the opportunity to study in the Italian capital. Like Saint-Saëns, he was much influenced by the words and music of Wagner but also saw a need to break away from Wagner´s influence. He was equally influenced by the paintings of the French Impressionists and by the music of Russia and Spain. 2
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That Debussy considered Wagner as something of an end of an era is reflected in his opera Pelleas and Melisande, itself something of a dead end in operatic style, albeit a particularly impressive one. His debt tot the Impressionists can be found in works such as the seamless Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun of 1894 and the Whistler like triptych of orchestral Nocturnes of 1900. The Cello Sonata is Debussy´s only work for this combination and is a companion to the Violin Sonata. In the field of his chamber music, both Sonatas are somewhat overshadowed by the justifiably popular String Quartet but all the elements of Debussy´s style are present here. The work is in three movements, each bearing a specific title – Prologue, Serenade and Finale. Elements of Spanish rhythms, jaunty melody, strange halting tonalities and a lengthy ruminative aspect reflecting the scenic portraits of the opera Pelleas, alternate throughout balancing the elements of mystery and openness so typical of the composer. Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft in 1913 and was to become the most prolific and successful of the new School of English composers that emerged after the second World War. It was Britten, in fact, who set off the renaissance of Opera in England with the premiere of his Peter Grimes in 1945, an opera that has remained firmly in the repertoire of the world´s major companies and become something of a British national opera. Although he concentrated on the operatic form and widened the scope of the form in Britain, creating chamber operas as well as full scale operas and short dramatic Parables, he also wrote works in most forms. His unique position in music at the time gave him access to many of the great performers of the day particularly his companion, the tenor Peter Pears and the Russian virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. It was for Rostropovich that Britten wrote his Cello Symphony towards the end of his career and the cello Sonata of 1961. Begun at Christmas the previous year, the Sonata was sent to the eager Rostropovich, at home in Moscow, in February 1961 – the cellist immediately began to learn the piece and fell in love with in at once. Rostropovich´s wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, described the work as “full of mood swings – expressive, low, grumbling, gay and carefree”. It is conceived in five sections with graphic and self explanatory titles – Dialogo, Scherzo, Pizzicato, Elegia, Marcia and a final Moto Perpetuo. 3
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The final works in this collection show a nationalist trend in music. Bartók was an avid collector of Hungarian folk music which he then recycled in his works whilst de Falla built on a tradition of Spanish folk songs, often creating his own melodies and Chopin, although associated so often with the French Salon, gave homage to his homeland in the Polonaise brilliant. The Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821, was written by Franz Schubert in Vienna in November 1824. The sonata is the only substantial composition for the arpeggione (which was essentially a bowed guitar) which remains extant today. It belongs to the same period as the Death and the Maiden Quartet, when Schubert was suffering from the advanced stages of syphilis and lapsing into increasingly frequent episodes of depression. The piece was probably commissioned by Schubert's friend Vincenz Schuster, who was a virtuoso of the arpeggione, an instrument which had been invented only the previous year. By the time the sonata was published posthumously in 1871, the enthusiasm for the novelty of the arpeggione had long since vanished, together with the instrument itself. Today, the piece is heard almost exclusively in transcriptions for cello and piano or viola and piano that were arranged after that time. Bohuslav Martinu was born in Czechoslovakia in 1890. He was six years old when he started to play the violin, and at 16 he took up composition at the Prague Conservatory. In 1923 he went to Paris for further studies, but he became so enchanted with the city that he stayed. After the Nazis invaded his native country and banned his music he decided to flee Europe and went to the USA. After the war he went to France and Switzerland. When he died in 1959 he left over 400 compositions. His Variations on a theme by Rossini for cello and piano were composed in 1942, and display virtuosity and wit. Shostakovich Cello Sonata in D minor Op 40 (1934) Premiered by Viktor Kubatski, the dedicatee, with the composer, Small Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory, 25 December 1934. Censured by Stalin, fêted by Khruschev, a child of Tsarist Petersburg schooled by the first Leninists, Shostakovich was a man, Solomon Volkov asserts at the end of Testimony (1979), who said that, looking back over his life, he saw nothing but ruins and ‘mountains of corpses’. ‘There were no particularly happy moments […], no great joys. It was grey and dull and it makes me sad to think about it. It saddens me to admit it, but it’s the truth, the unhappy truth.’ Like Tolstoy, he believed that music was a ‘stenography of feelings,’ a force ‘capable of expressing overwhelming, sombre drama and euphoria, sorrow and ecstasy, 4
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burning wrath and chilling fury, melancholy and rousing merriment – and not only all these emotions but also their subtlest nuances and the transitions in between – which words, painting or sculpture cannot express [… Music] creates a spiritual image of man, teaches him to feel, and expands and liberates his soul.’ In the doom-laden key of the Fifth Symphony, fathoming quintessential largo waters, testing structural and imaginative ideas that would need larger canvases to reach their fullest expression, the Cello Sonata was the composer’s first major chamber work. ‘The lightning speed at which I compose unsettles me. This is surely bad. One shouldn’t write as quickly as I do. This is, after all, a serious process, and therefore one shouldn’t “gallop” (as a well-known ballerina used to say). I compose terribly fast and can’t put on the brakes [...] As soon as I have finished a work, I’m no longer so sure that the time was well spent.
Timora Rosler, Cellist The Israeli/Dutch cellist Timora Rosler took first prize at the 1996 "Stuttgart International Cello Competition". In 1997 she won the "Vriendenkrans of the Royal Concertgebouw" in Amsterdam. She was praised by the jury as follows: "Timora Rosler has a capturing talent, intimate expressiveness, virtuosity and a natural feeling for the composition … Her interpretation is exceptionally fascinating". A year later she won a special prize for her interpretation at the "XI International Bach Competition" in Leipzig. She also won the top prize at the "Caltanisetta International Duo Chamber Music Competition" in 1996 in Italy with her duo-partner Klára Würtz. Since 1985 she was awarded the "America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship" and later became a member of the "Distinguished Young Artists Chamber Music Group" at the Jerusalem Music Center. She has attended master classes with artists such as Janos Starker, Heinrich Schiff, Boris Pergamenschikov, Anner Bijlsma, Daniel Shafran and Lynn Harell. 5
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Timora holds a Performing Musician degree (UM) from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, where she studied with Dmitri Ferschtman, and a Certificate of Performance from Yale University where she was a pupil of Aldo Parisot. Timora participated in numerous music festivals including Ravinia, Aspen, Banff Center for the Arts, the Manchester Cello Festival, the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove (England), Holland Music Sessions, Pro Festival in Rolandseck (Germany) and the Maurice Ravel Summer Academy in France. She also took part in the Gaia Chamber Music Festival in Thun. Timora has appeared in concerts in Europe, the United States, Canada, Argentina and Israel. As a soloist she has performed with different orchestras such as the Flemish Radio Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins, Philharmonia of the Nations/Justus Frantz, Janรกcek Philharmonic, Slovak Sinfonietta, Donetsk Philharmonic, National Symphony of Ukraine, Israel Sinfonietta Beer-Sheva, Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra. With the Orquesta de Cรกmara Mayo of Buenos Aires she toured extensively throughout the Netherlands (including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw) and Argentina, with works of Piazzolla. Both a television and a CD recording were made of this collaboration. She has also made recordings for the Israeli, Hungarian, German, Dutch and American Radio. Timora is professor of cello at the Utrecht Conservatory of Music. She has given master classes at the International Conservatoire Week in St. Petersburg in Russia, International Cello Congress & Festival in Israel, Cellofestival Dordrecht, Utrecht String Academy in St. Vallerin in France and Strings Winter Academy Davos in Switzerland. Timora plays on a Thomas Dodd cello from 1800.
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Klára Würtz, Pianist Klára Würtz was born in Budapest, Hungary, and started playing the piano at the age of five. At the age of fourteen Klára was admitted at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy, Budapest, where she studied at the faculty for the exceptionally gifted children with Mrs. Máthé, and later with Zoltán Kocsis, Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág and András Schiff. In 1985 she won the Ettore Pozzoli piano competition in Milan. In 1988 she was one of the prize winners at the International Piano Competition in Dublin. In 1991 she signed up with Columbia Artists Management, New York, and since then has performed over a hundred concerts in the United States and Canada. She made her North American debut with orchestra as the soloist in Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Jiri Belohlavek. Her most successful recitals were in the Kennedy Center, Washington and at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. In 2001 she made her successful debut in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam playing Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Philharmonia der Nationen conducted by Justus Frantz. She is a member of the Amsterdam Piano Trio. She plays duo with Israeli cellist Timora Rosler, and played with violinists such as Janine Jansen and Dmitri Makhtin. She made nearly 20 CD recordings, among which the complete Piano Sonatas of Mozart, a selection of Schubert Sonatas and the Piano Works of Robert Schumann. In spring 2003 Klára made her debut in the Symphony Hall of Boston and Carnegie Hall, New York with the Boston Symphony with conductor Bernard Haitink. Her debut recital in the Great Hall of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam was an overwhelming success. In summer 2004 she gave an open-air concert for an audience of over 30.000 in the central square of Budapest broadcasted live on national television, playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto with the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer. For 2006 she is invited to play a Mozart recital in the Mozarteum as part of the prestigious Salzburger Festspiele. Klára Würtz is professor of piano at the Conservatory of Arts in Utrecht and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Artwork: Studio058, www.studio058.nl Photo cover: Romain d’Ansembourg