Friday 20 August 2010

Lalo - Cello Concerto [Harrell/Chailly-RSO Berlin]

Well first off the booklet photo, isn't this a lovely shot? [by P Ingrand], a field full of poppies with a villa in the background, one of the very best photos in the Decca Eclipse series.

This is a nice selection of Cello Concertos once you get away from the ever popular Dvorak & Elgar, the recordings come from 1981 and 1984, and i spoke about the Schumann Concerto on this disc by Lynn Harrell last month [6th July 2010].

Listening to this Concerto again, i realise how very good the first movement really is, it starts off with the angry orchestra, especially notice the forte outbursts, that keep coming back again and again, even when the Cello makes an appearance [0:32+], the outbursts continue, in fact it's a feature of the whole movement, we get five outbursts in a row early on [1:13-1:18], but then not far into the movement, we get a gentle and sweet respite by the Cello [3:12+], even though the angry music returns, so does these lyrical Cello episodes [7:25+ & 9:20+], right at the end the orchestra has the final say in a defiant display of forte music to bring things to a close, nice and exciting this.

Here's Xavier Phillips playing the first movement on YouTube.