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The Romantic Cello Concerto Vol. I
Dohnányi • Enescu • d'Albert
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Alban Gerhardt, cello
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Carlos Kalmar, conductor
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Erno Dohnányi |
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Konzertstück in D major Op. 12 |
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Allegro non troppo (5:52) |
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Adagio (6:32) |
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Tempo I, ma molto più tranquillo (11:45) |
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George Enescu |
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Symphonie concertante in B flat minor Op. 8 |
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Assez lent – Un peu plus animé (10:00) |
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Tempo I (4:42) |
| 6. |
Majestueux – Plus vite (7:40) |
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Eugen d’Albert |
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Cello Concerto in C major Op. 20 |
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Allegro moderato – Animato – Allegro – Molto tranquillo (9:58) |
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Andante con moto (7:09) |
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Allegro vivace – Allegro molto (4:45) |
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Playing time: 68:52 minutes |
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| Fono Forum: 5 Stars for Music, 5 Stars for Sound... |
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 Hyperion has brought us outstanding series of Romantic Piano and Violin concertos. Now, it launches its Romantic Cello Concertos strand with a triple-whammy of works by composers of the 1900s who often fall between the cracks. Alban Gerhardt is the superb soloist in the lovely Dohnanyi piece, and he introduces the no less impressive concerto by d’Albert and Enescu’s early Smphonyie concertante. 
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| —5 Sterne, The Independent, 17.September 2005 |
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The first cello…immediately gives every soft-centred soul reasons to rejoice in Hyperion’s latest “romantic” series. This first release bring three one-movement works from the turn of the 20th century, given loving treatment by the cellist Alban Gerhardt, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the conductor Carlos Kalmar… |
| Geoff Brown, The Times, September 3, 2005 |
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One of the company's coups here is in securing the exceptional young German cellist Alban Gerhardt. Another is to find three works written with such allure and such beguiling sympathy for the instrument that their neglect is unfathomable. Dohnányi's Konzertstück (1903-4), Enescu's Symphonie concertante (1901) and Glasgow-born Eugen d'Albert's Cello Concerto (1899) are all substantial pieces - just under half an hour each - and combine resourceful orchestration and disciplined structural principles with wonderfully idiomatic cello lyricism, exploiting the instrument's capacity for rapture, colour and autumnal contemplation. Gerhardt's playing, with its richly hued tone, gets right to the heart of this music and brilliantly ignites the fireworks that the Enescu and d'Albert pieces have up their sleeves..
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| Geoffrey Norris, Telegraph, August 27, 2005 |
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| It would be difficult to find a more enticing choice of repertory for the first volume in Hyperion’s highly enterprising Romantic Cello Concerto series than the three sumptuous late 19th-century compositions on offer here. Heart-warming lyrical melodies, as well as characteristically resourceful orchestration, abound in the Dohnányi Konzertstück – a highly attractive if somewhat Brahmsian work that has previously enjoyed the advocacy of Janos Starker, Raphael Wallfisch and Maria Kliegel on disc. Gerhardt’s warmly recorded performance lays claim to being the most convincing of all, not least for the passion and sensitivity of his playing...Once again, Gerhardt acquits himself admirably, making light work of the technical hurdles in the Finale, and the interaction between soloist and orchestra is first-rate. More subtle and emotionally elusive than the other two works, Enescu’s inexplicably neglected Symphonie Concertante is projected with the utmost conviction by Gerhardt and Kalmar and provides a fitting climax to a totally absorbing release. |
| Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 |
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Not always there is reason to be euphoric when performers dedicate themselves to a repertoire wich is neither in concert nor on cd paid attention to…Pioneering spirit alone won’t help the piece, it will remain forgotten…As soon though as an artist from the format of Alban Gerhardt looks for niche-repertoire as happened here on the first “Romantic Cello Concerto” series of Hyperion, eyes widen. Now the listener can make new experiences. Gerhardt has worked himself stringently up into the world elite of cellists in the past few years and has finally found a recording label. He brings with him everything which makes cello playing exciting: an engaging, vibant sound, profound musicality and superior technical abilities, which enables truly artistic freedom. Aban Gerhardt brings all that to bear with Dohnányi’s Concertpiece, George Enescu’s Symphonia concertante and Eugen d’Albert’s Celloconcerto…All pieces composed through without breaks between movements demand shaping in great continuity. Gerhardt has this vision, always knows what he is doing, phrases exact and ‘explains’ the music. Fortunately he can always count on the conductor and the orchestra. Alban Gerhardt will record more works in the series “Romantic Cello Concertos”. We can’t wait to see more.
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| Norbert Hornig, CD of the month in Fonoforum, Dezember 2005 |
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| As one has come to expect of him, the cellist Alban Gerhardt has delivered this cd oflittle-known repertorywith consummate virtuosity and style. The spiccato scael passages that pepper the Enescu Symphonie concertante sound simply dazzling. But it’s not just technical élan that marks out his playing for the lyrical and unswervingly Romantic melodic material of the Dohnányi is captivatingly sculpted with full-blooded intensity… |
| Joanne Talbot, Strad Magazin, November 2005 |
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| …But the gem of the release comes in Enescu’s Symphonie Concertante, that sends the soloist scurrying round the instrument in a fabulous display of virtuosity. Theincredibly gifted young Alban Gerhardt dances through these technical hurdles with ease, moving to those creamy slow movements with the most elegant playing. Stunning support from the BBC Scottisch Symphony. |
| Yorkshire Post, September 23, 2005 |
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| This first edition of Hyperion’s „The Romantic Cello Concerto“ enables us to listen to the excellent soloist Alban Gerhardt in three rare but highly interesting works…Attentively accompanied by the BBC Sottisch Symphony under Carlos Kalmar the soloist proves rare musicality and finesse. In d’Albert’s concerto he shows more elegance than Lynn Harrell (Decca), while there is no competition for him in Enescu’s brilliant and colourful Symphonia concertante.Much the same for the concertpiece by Dohnányi, in which his conception is more classical than János Starker’s. |
| Michel Le Naour, La Monde de la Musique, Oktober 2005 |
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…These three works, composed within a few years of each other…make sensible disc-mates, and having them together means that you won’t have to hunt around on various labels or buy yet another Dvorak or Elgar concerto in order to acquire some interesting new repertoire. Alban Gerhardt is a splendid soloist, playing with warm tone, excellent intonation, and a welcome absence of gasping and grinding in fortissimo… The two men make beautiful music together…This is good stuff <Dohnányi>, not just well-crafted but also more emotionally involving. Lushly rhapsodic passages alternate with moments of dark introspection, and the ending is pure poetry…Enescu’s Symphonie concertante…reveals from the very first chord a fresh new musical voice….It is also here that Gerhardt’s playing really rises to the occasion, revealing a commanding ability to effectively phrase Enescu’s long, sinewy paragraphs. Ideally balanced sonics and typically confident support from the BBC Orchestra round out a splendid initial release. We can only wait eagerly for more. |
| David Hurwitz, Classics Today, November 21, 2005 |
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| …Alban Gerhardt, one of the finest cellists of the younger generation, plays here with a range of tone and dynamics and both personalises and illuminates the three workds presented…Gerhardt is really inside the music and gently communicative – no mean feat under studio conditions – and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orhcestra respond with sensitivity and commitment to Carlos Kalmar…This fine collection of pieces, each playing continuously, and all written within a five-year period, really is the preserve of the ‚grammophone’ – these are concert-hall rarities that can now be listened to at any time. Both the Dohnányi and, in particular, the Enescu have the appeal of not being obvious and with the promise of more to discover. |
| Colin Anderson, Classical Source.com, September 9, 2005 |
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…Enescu’s Symphonia concertante, whose passionate-lyrical melodies were just streaming out of Alban Gerhardt’s hand and bow…A splendid work, beautifully performed! Eugen d’Albert’s concerto gives Alban Gerhardt another chance to prove his art of playing highly virtuoso or with soulful dedication. He gave the piece the maximum of sensuality – only major and deeply interpreting artists achieve that. |
| Rémy Franck, Pizzicato, Dezember 2005 |
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…Alban Gerhardt impresses immensely with his sumptuous, warm sound, his singing, long lines, but also with his fascinating virtuosity. Just take the swirling last movement of Enescu’s Symphonia concertante: this is indeed a cascade or much rather a tsunami of rapid passage works. But they pose no problem whatsoever for Gerhardt,since no wave is too high for the cellist from Berlin…
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| Frits de Haan, Klassieke Zaken, Oktober 2005 |
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| …Alban Gerhardt is an elegant cellist with a good eye and an open heart for this beautiful music. His sound sings, laughs and cries, his technique offers him every possibility to make music in all liberty. He is capable to exploit the entire depth of this music. In a word, he has enough souvereignty to let the music speak, to captivate his audience. He forms an inspiring unit with the BBC Symphony… |
| Luister, Dezember 2005/Januar 2006 |
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…This concerto (Enescu) is the most demanding of the three works on this cd, for soloist as well as for the orchestra, and we can be grateful, that Alban Gerhardt is in every respect more than rising to the occasion. His playing is virtuoso and full of sentiment, the accompaniment practically impeccable… |
| Ilja Nieuwland, Weekly, Oktober 2005 |
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| Hyperion launches its new “The Romantic Cello Concerto” series with a garland of three attractive but rarely recorded works. Superficially, they have a lot in common. All were written at the dawn of the twentieth century by men famous as performers on instruments other than the cello; all are their respective composers’ only work for cello and orchestra; all are cast in a post-Lisztian multiple-movements-in-one format with plenty of thematic unity. Yet they’re sufficiently different in personality to give the disc considerable variety. Dohnányi’s, written when the composer was in his mid-twenties, is the most polished of the three – no surprise, since this composer-pianist seems almost to have been born into stylistic maturity. It’s not an especially profound work (a fetching long-spanned melody sweetened with unexpected harmonics swerves that may call to mind Richard Strass), it secures your attention with its resourceful thematic development, its textural activity and its velvet orchestration, often building to succulent climaxes (try the orchestral return of the main theme toward the beginning of the final section). The Symphonie concertante, completed just after Enescu’s twentieth birthday, is less assured in its orchestration, a bit creakier in its transitions. But it’s also more exploratory, even visionary – more intent on seeking out new sonorities, more willing to challenge the listener’s ear with its sometimes contentious interactions of sloist and orchestra, readier to wander off in unexpected directions. In spots, is seems to look ahead to Bloch’s Schelomo – even though it’s less uniform and less consistently intense in it utterance. In the end, it’s not an easy work – but it offers high intellectual and emotional rewards for the demands it makes. D’Albert was by far the most experienced of these composers when he wrote his Cello Concerto in 1899. He already had several operas, a symphony and two piano concertos behind him, and his most famous work, Tiefland, was just a few years ahead. Yet his work is on a distinctly lower plane, even more apt to fumble than Enescu’s, decidedly more conventional in outlook than Dohnányis’s. Nor is it an especially grateful piece for the soiloist: indeed, the first movement begins with nearly a minute of arpeggio chugging that even the supremely fluent Emmanuel Feuermann, in a long unavailable concert performance, could not keep from sounding arduous. Still, while its melodic profile is undistinsuished and its orchestration grey, the concerto has a rough honesty that’s oddly winning – and its assertive finale has enough virtuoso fireworks to compensate for the occasional doldrums elsewhere. There’s little current recorded competition – and except for two recordings of the Dohnányi (Maria Kliegel and Csaba Onczay) what’s available is not especially compelling. But even were these works as popular as their contemporary Don Quixotte, Alban Gerhardt’s light-fingered and forward-moving (but never pushy) performances – elegant in tone, eloquent in phrasing, deft in rhythm – would stand out for their freshness and their evident enthusiasm for the music. Orchestral support and engineering are both excellent, and Martin Anderson’s notes are a pleasure to read. An auspicious release. |
| International Record Review, Peter J. Rabinowitz, November 2005 |
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...With sophisticated tone, the cellist Alban Gerhardt undertakes a voyage of discovery through the classical-romantic structure of the “Konzertstück” (Concert Piece) of Ernö Dohnányi. It is rewarding to revisit Eugen d’Albert’s cello concerto, which greets you with fine dialogues between wind section and solo. The folkloristic, edgedly accented “Symphonie Concertante” of George Enescu provides ample virtuoso material for the fact that Gerhardt is no less at home with the art of softness as with the challenging force of the fortissimo is clear in. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Carlos Kalmar keeps up splendidly... |
| Egon Bezold, Stereo Dezember 2005 |
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