Leonard Rose: Live in Recital, 1953-1960 = BACH: Adagio from Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C Major; Site No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009; BEETHOVEN: Variations n “Bei Maennern”; Cello Sonata in A, Op. 69: Adagio cantabile and Allegro vivace; FRANCK: Cello Sonata in A Major; SCHUMANN: Fantasiestuecke, Op. 74; CHOPIN: Nocturne in C-sharp Minor; Cello Sonata in G Minor: Largo; DEBUSSY: The Little Shepherd; Cello Sonata in D Minor; BARBER: Cello Sonata, Op. 6; MARTINU: Cello Sonata No. 2; FRANCOEUR: Allegro; IBERT: Petit ane blanc; HAYDN: Cello Sonata in C Major: Tempo di Minuetto – Leonard Rose, cello/Frank Iogha, piano/Jack Maxin, piano (Martinu)/Arthur Balsam, piano (Debussy Sonata)/Mitchell Andrews, piano (Barber)/Leonid Hambro, piano (Beethoven and Chopin sonatas)
VAI Audio VAIA 1261-2 (2 CDs), 135:31 ****:
Between the Frick Collection and recitals gleaned from the Library of Congress, VAI has assembled a lyrically tasteful tribute to cello virtuoso Leonard Rose (1918-1984), American born of Russian immigrants, who emerged from the first chair of the New York Philharmonic to become one of the world’s leading soloists. Yet, Leonard Rose, once called “the most nervous of all musical performers,” never found the glamour he sought. “Leonard wanted super-stardom,” offered colleague Bernard Greenhouse in an interview we did in Atlanta in the late 1980’s. “He had a passion for celebrity which avoided him, although he certainly had a marvelous reputation as a musician and teacher.” The accompanying booklet, produced by Arthur Rose, includes photographs, testimonials, and reminiscences that make the entire VAI package extremely attractive – the sonics, too, in gorgeous colors.
It was Rose’s own cousin, Frank Miller, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he provided Leonard the grounding he needed as a cello virtuoso. From Miller’s solid command of all fundamentals, Rose improved enough to impress Felix Salmond of the Curtis Institute and win a badly-needed scholarship. In 1938, after having graduated with a diverse, musical education from Curtis–playing solo and as part of a trio–Rose accepted a post as the 12th cellist in Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra. In a flash of Toscanini temper, the second cello chair fell into disfavor and Rose replaced him. From second chair to first within four months; then, Rose moved to the first chair with the Cleveland Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski in 1939. When Rodzinski moved to the New Philharmonic in 1943, he brought Leonard Rose with him, although he would play second cello to Joseph Schuster. New York had long been Rose’s preferred venue; and here, working with the likes of Dimitri Mitropoulos and Bruno Walter, he demonstrated that his talents exceeded those of the principal of an orchestra and demanded solo status. In is from this fertile period that these discs derive their source materials.
We open with the Casals arrangement of Bach’s noble Adagio from BWV 564 (15 January 1956, as is all of disc one), a testament to Rose’s capacity for a firm, noble, liquid musical line, accompanied by Frank Iogha. Beethoven’s set of variations allows Rose to project a series of delicate colors and buffo characters in stately, continuous procession, always with a richly sonorous tone and firm control of his effects. Franck’s Sonata in its cello form had to be a relative novelty to 1956 audiences, its exotic, erotic chromatics acquiring a piercing sonority in Rose’s realization, especially in the Quasi Lento section, with its high-flown cantilena that dips into the cello’s low baritone/high bass register. The scintillating, buzzing riffs elicit as much energy as the sweeping, lyrical episodes. The cello’s high register sings just as forcefully in the Recitativo-fantasia, where Rose’s digital security negotiates the dips and dynamic spans without a trace of tonal insecurity, the melody floating like the Saint-Saens swan over the gorgeous arpeggios from Iogha. That same ease of style and technical confidence permeates the last movement, its canons moving in limpid periods that embrace aspects of each prior movement, a perfect circle inscribed in a square.
It was in 1947 that critic Olin Downes wrote of Leonard Rose that he “played one of the dullest of all cello concertos, the Schumann, and he stopped the show.” A natural Schumann exponent, Rose plays the three Fantasie-pieces, Op. 73 with a suave sympathy that captures their lyrical obsession, their moody intimacy. An urgency, a sense of impending anguish haunts all three movements, even the second, marked Lively, Light. A breathless desperation almost consumes the last section, to be played quickly and with fire. Rose breathes the phrases with acumen and that “nostalgia for the dream” which defines the composer’s total output. The Haydn (and Boccherini) style was always part of the Leonard Rose sensibility, and his Minuetto from the C Major Sonata conveys witty grace. The Chopin Nocturne, a favorite of Milstein for his own transcription, achieves an almost Spanish character, even in the midst of its most Polish nationalism. The Francoeur is a virtuoso etude in perpetual motion, Paganini for the cello. The Ibert does ask for Iberian strokes: the donkey’s waspish braying has a decided accent. The Little Shepherd, by way of the cello, assumes an eerie, lonely character, Rose moving between recitative and arioso with tender applications of bow pressure.
The Bach Suite and the Martinu Sonata date from 28 February 1960, Rose at the peak of his powers. Since we have no full Bach unaccompanied suites recorded commercially, we must rejoice in this stunning document, despite its lack of the final Gigue. The Prelude alone is enough to enthrall us with Rose’s cumulative, driving power and vocal enunciation. Both the Allemande and Courante enjoy a muscular, sinewy exposition, a forthright energy and confidence rife with momentum. The Sarabande emerges a true prayer to music; and here we feel Rose close to the tenor–if not to the older tradition–of Pablo Casals. For liquid fire, try the Martinu with Jack Maxin, piano, veritable, dark tone-poem that embraces Czechoslovakia by way of Parisian musical values. We might mistake Rose for Janos Starker, except that burnished tone remains unmistakable. The Largo evolves into an extended dirge in modal, angular terms, influenced by Bartok. The last movement, Allegro commodo, presents an uncompromising set of spirits, composer and performers, in music whose dark, surly energy resembles Shostakovich.
The equally angular Barber Sonata with Mitchell Andrews (22 February 1953) benefits from Rose’s natural ability to make a heavenly song rise well above the sea of troubles the music often projects. The music moves into the mystical at times, and Rose brings his own passions to the fore, much as Piatagorsky had in his own way. The middle movement, a lively Adagio-Presto, displays Rose’s facility in highly virtuosic, metrically irregular phrasings, his arioso passages quite piercing and linear, underlined by a wide vibrato. Vivid, passionate strokes mark out the last movement, Allegro appassionato from first note to last. Debussy’s Sonata (23 January 1953) with veteran Arthur Balsam from the Frick Collection provides the last of the regular program selections, excluding encores. A premier for Leonard Rose enthusiasts, it reveals an aggressive, ardent approach to this often mercurial work, whose second movement becomes a troubadour’s strummed serenade. Even in its highly concentrated form, the music speaks volumes of traditional repertory and techniques subsumed into a studied whole, its last movement singing with exalted Iberian, even Moorish, ecstasies.
The two encores, by Beethoven and Chopin (6 March 1953) feature Rose in in brilliant, refined collaboration with Leonid Hambro (1920-2006), who said of Rose that he had “the most beautiful sound of any cellist I know.” The inspired readings should more than justify Hambro’s claim, his having assisted more string players in diverse repertoire than anyone in his years as WQXR’s official pianist.
— Gary Lemco
