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Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin: BEETHOVEN: Works for Cello and Piano – Pablo Casals, cello/ Rudolf Serkin, piano – Praga Digitals 

Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin: BEETHOVEN: Works for Cello and Piano – Pablo Casals, cello/ Rudolf Serkin, piano – Praga Digitals 

by | Jul 9, 2017 | Classical Reissue Reviews, SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

BEETHOVEN: Works for Cello and Piano = Sonata in F Major, Op. 5, No. 1; Sonata in g minor, OP. 5, No. 2; Seven Variations on “Bein Maennern, welche Liebe fuehler” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, WoO 46; Twelve Variations on “Ein Maedchen oder Weibchen” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Op. 66;  Sonata in A Major, Op. 69; Sonata in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1; Sonata in d Major, Op. 102, No. 2; Twelve Variations on “See, the conqu’ring hero comes” from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, WoO 45 – Pablo Casals, cello/ Rudolf Serkin, piano – Praga Digitals PRD 250 372 (2 CDs) 80:35; 81:30 (6/16/17) [Distr. Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Praga restores the classic set of Beethoven works for cello and piano by the legendary Casals and Serkin. Most lovers of the great cello masters will acknowledge Pablo Casals (1876-1973) as the legendary representative of the 19th Century “romantic” school of musicianship, which rather came to an end with the advent of Emanuel Feuerman. Casals collaborated with Bohemian pianist Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) in 1952 and 1953 specifically to record Beethoven’s oeuvre for cello and piano, excluding the transcription of the Op. 17 Horn Sonata. The two veteran musicians had endured […]

SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor – Amit Peled, cello/ Washington Ch. Orch./ Jun Kim – Centaur

SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor – Amit Peled, cello/ Washington Ch. Orch./ Jun Kim – Centaur

by | Jul 7, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 – Amit Peled, cello Washington Ch. Orch./ Jun Kim – Centaur CRC 3476, 25:35 (Distr. by Naxos) (11/13/15) ****: The soloist plays here the same cello previously owned by Pablo Casals, and heard here in its first recording. One of the highlights of this year’s Montréal’s Chamber Music Festival took place on June 16 when the the six foot, five inch cellist Amit Peled, playing for the first time in Canada on Pablo Casals’ legendary, drop-dead gorgeous Matteo Goffriller from 1733, performed a short set of cello pieces with pianist Alon Goldstein, mesmerizing the large Pollack Hall audience with his generous presence, effortless virtuosity, consummate poetry and the trademark eloquent, plaintive and deeply communicative sound of his famous instrument. A lot of the communication was coming from Peled himself. The Goffriller cello looked in Peled’s hands as if it were a violin with a ten-foot endpin; in reality, of course, both the cello and the fully-extended endpin were of conventional size (Casals’ own endpin, still on when Peled took custodianship in 2012, was a stubby wooden affair). Peled will release his first solo recital CD on the Casals cello in the fall, repeating […]