Ofra Harnoy, Vol. I = OFFENBACH: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra; TCHAIKOVSKY: Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33; SAINT-SAENS: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33 – Cincinnati Symphony/Erich Kunzel (Offenbach)/Victoria Symphony Orchestra/Paul Freeman
DOREMI DHR-6607, 61:00 [Distr. by Allegro] ****:
Canadian cello virtuoso Ofra Harnoy (b. 1965), like her illustrious compatriot Glenn Gould, may qualify as “a concert dropout,” but her legacy, recorded and recalled from concerts, remains luminary. This disc, produced by her father and first teacher, Jacob Harnoy, includes the Offenbach Cello Concerto whose world premier Ofra Harnoy presented in 1983. Her exalted and eminently sensuous tone permeates all the music she touches, and the delicacy of her touch may well exceed that of her eminent teachers, Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline du Pre, and Vladimir Orloff. The lovely collaboration on Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations (15 December 1984) with Paul Freeman from Victoria offers a case in point. The facility and grace of each of the variants on the quaint tune combines digital finesse and a balletic shaping of the phrases, the perfect Tchaikovsky stylization. The ascent of the scales into harmonics or deep bass tones–like the low E in Variation V–occurs without any loss of pulse, the colors both intense and richly nuanced.
The shifts in tonality, from C Major to A Major to D Minor, occur in a natural arch interrupted by a poised cadenza from Harnoy before she and the flute engage in the Andante Variation VI, a pas de deux of elegant beauty. The final Variation and Coda, with its flurry of 32nd notes for Harnoy and the flute, has us on our collective toes, which tap and yearn to lift off into the ether. The last bars convey the pure happiness and exultation of a piece well-rendered by a master soloist and ensemble.
The easy swagger and panache of the Offenbach Cello Concerto belies its long neglect from the concert hall and the recording studio. Harnoy and Kunzel (3 September 1983) dance and sachet through each and every of the work’s technical challenges–like dapper shifts of register and some tortuously rapid writing for the stratosphere–in order to sell the work’s innate capacity for lyricism and joie de vivre. Typically, many of the patter tunes seem to come right from the Paris music hall and operetta, but the meditative episodes have the power of Massenet or any first rate melodist. The symphonic writing occasionally crescendos in the manner of an Auber or Thomas overture, cross-colored by a military sensibility. Attacca, and we enter the second movement, a cantabile of studied poignancy and nuance over a dotted martial rhythm. Kubrick could have utilized this melody in Barry Lyndon. The opening polka tune returns, a bouncy affair in the Johann Strauss mode, but only as a prelude to the cello’s ardent song, and even that noble air runs into feline harmonics. The interplay becomes more deft, more animated, and we sail with Ms. Harnoy to a rousing finale in multi-stopped colors, enhanced by a touch of can-can music.
The Saint-Saens Concerto No. 1 (16 December 1984) with Paul Freeman enjoys a gem-like realization, a lovely understated pearl rendered not so much for its bravura but for its exquisite taste. Alternately lush and dainty, the first two movements glide by as to appear to play themselves. A bass-baritone transition from Harnoy takes us to cyclic return of the opening movement’s agitated figures, and then Harnoy sweeps us ineluctably forward into the orchestral tutti and famed, throaty melody of the final movement. Her plaint quite enthralls us in musical meditation until the storms erupt and the presto passagework ensues. After a tightrope of harmonic notes, the cello rushes forth once, sings the noble air, and it only remains for the fabulous coda melody to hasten us to a most satisfying final peroration.
–Gary Lemco
