Finzi: Cello Concerto, Op. 40
Leighton: Cello Concerto, Op. 31
Raphael Wallfisch (cello)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Bryden Thomson (conductor) (Finzi)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley (conductor) (Leighton)
Chandos
Chandos has had the bright idea of recoupling
Raphael Wallfisch's recordings of two fine cello concertos by British composers,
both of whom died in their fifties.
Gerald Finzi is the better-known composer, remembered for his choral and vocal music, but his Cello Concerto is one of his most ambitious and satisfying works. There's an autumnal flavor about much of it, perhaps because the composer was aware that his illness would be fatal. That may account, too, for the defiant mood of the first movement, the aching beauty of the slow movement and the undertow of darkness that dampens the cheerful mood of the finale.
Wallfisch captures all of the work's subtleties, playing with a lean warmth, reducing his tone to a whisper and attacking trills and tricky rhythms with verve. He's matched by Thomson, a specialist in British music, who secures fine playing from his Scottish forces, making the most of the piece's lyric beauties while also summoning huge orchestral reserves for the big climaxes.
Kenneth Leighton's Cello Concerto was begun in 1955, the year the Finzi premiered. Like the older composer's work, its modernist gestures are softened by a romanticism that emphasizes brilliant orchestration and solo virtuosity in the service of emotionally generous lyricism. The trio of the Scherzo is especially fetching, a poetic pause in a movement full of driving rhythms and broad-stroke colors. The long finale, marked Lento: molto sostenuto, establishes a nocturnal, expressive mood and closes, as Eliot's poem goes, "not with a bang, but a whimper."
Here, too, Wallfisch gives an outstanding performance, this time with Handley and the Liverpudlians.
Chandos' sound is first-rate, revealing orchestral detail and placing the
soloist front-and-center while avoiding excessive spotlighting. If you're at all
interested in modern British music or want to discover a pair of big, worthy
cello concertos, don't miss this disc.
Available for purchase at
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