COMPOSERS: Kodaly,Tcherepnin & Cassadó,Ysaye
LABELS: Accord
ALBUM TITLE: Tatjana Vassilieva
WORKS: Cello works
PERFORMER: Tatjana Vassilieva (cello)
CATALOGUE NO: 476 7191
By general consent Kodály’s Solo Sonata is regarded as the finest work for unaccompanied cello since Bach’s six suites. Russian cellist Tatjana Vassilieva, recorded with considerable immediacy in the luxuriant ambience of the Temple de Bon Secours in Paris, delivers its three contrasting movements with blazing commitment and passion, making light of the phenomenal technical hurdles that could so easily trap a less experienced performer. More importantly, she remains focused on maintaining structural lucidity and continuity – factors that can often be overlooked in music that has such an intrinsically rhapsodic character. Inevitably the rest of her programme operates on a less exalted musical level, though Vassilieva has sufficient variety in her tonal apparatus to effect the requisite nobility in Ysaÿe’s Sonata, Op. 28, or the generally understated orientalism of Tcherepnin’s Suite. Finally Gaspar Cassadó’s Spanish-inflected Suite offers her further opportunity to revel in interpretative exuberance with a fluid and imaginative rendition of the opening Preludio-Fantasia and a no-holds-barred approach to the sizzling ‘Danza finale’ which is guaranteed to bring the house down, providing a perfect coda to an outstanding and enjoyable CD.
Erik Levi
