Koechlin; Pierné - Chansons Bretonnes; Cello Sonatas (Lidström; Forsberg)

Information

Composer: Charles Koechlin; Gabriel Pierné

• Pierné - Cello Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 46
• Koechlin - Cello Sonata, Op. 66
• Koechlin - Chansons bretonnes sur d'anciennes chansons populaires, Op. 115 - Books I & II

Mats Lidström, cello

Bengt Forsberg, piano

Date: 1998

Label: Hyperion

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66979

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Review

The present two artists are certainly doing their bit in enlarging the recorded repertoire of the cello. After their highly praised disc of Godard and Boellmann (Hyperion, 9/96) they have turned their attention to two near-contemporaries born in the 1860s, both pupils of Massenet: Pierne famous for succeeding Cesar Franck at the organ of Ste Clotilde and for directing the Orchestre Colonne for many years (and conducting the premiere of Stravinsky’s Firebird), Koechlin (who incidentally taught Cole Porter) for his vast output and his belated crush (in his late sixties) on film stars, particularly Lilian Harvey. The latter composer is represented by two attractive works – a set of Breton folk-song arrangements, which range from the simple and melancholy (“La prophetie”) to the capricious (“Alain-le-Renard”) or the archaic (“Les trois moines rouges”, treated in organum), and which allow Lidstrom to display his tonal range from robust (“Le vin des Gaulois”) to a thread of sound (“Le seigneur Nann et la fee”), and a short sonata from over a decade earlier, written in 1917. Despite being written in wartime, for much of the work the prevailing mood is one of contemplative tranquillity (which calls forth some ravishing soft playing from the cellist), though the central movement has an extremely complex piano part in a free atonality that continues into the agitated finale. Pierne’s big sonata is a rhapsodic, largely ecstatic work in one continuous movement that nevertheless divides into four sections, the material of the long slow first returning after a yearningly sensual Animez: the sonata culminates in an imaginative finale with moments of brilliance. The performance here is an eloquent one by both players, who are to be congratulated on their very sensitive subtlety; and the recording is strikingly truthful.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone

More reviews:

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Nov14/French_cello_CDA66979.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Pierne-Sonata-Koechlin-Chansons-Bretonnes/dp/B000007SZD

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Charles Koechlin (27 November 1867 – 31 December 1950) was a French composer, teacher and musicologist. Among his teachers at the Paris Conservatoire were Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars (especially Lilian Harvey and Ginger Rogers), traveling, stereoscopic photography and socialism. As a composer, Koechlin was enormously prolific, and was highly eclectic in inspiration and technique.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koechlin

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Gabriel Pierné (16 August 1863 – 17 July 1937) was a French composer, conductor, pianist and organist. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire; his teachers included Antoine François Marmontel, Albert Lavignac, Émile Durand, César Franck and Jules Massenet. He succeeded Franck as organist at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris from 1890 to 1898. Pierné wrote several operas, choral and symphonic pieces as well as a good deal of chamber music. He also made a few electrical recordings for Odeon Records, from 1928 to 1934. Pierné was also known for his discovery and promotion of the work of Ernest Fanelli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Pierné

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Mats Lidström (born 1959) is a Swedish solo cellist, recording artist, chamber musician, composer, teacher and publisher. He studied with Maja Vogl in Gothenburg, then with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School. Lidström has performed and recorded as a soloist and principal cellist with some of the world's major orchestras and conductors. He often seeks out neglected but beautiful music for the cello and has produced several highly acclaimed and award-winning CDs for EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, BIS, Hyperion, as well as on his own label CelloLid.com. Lidström plays the "Grützmacher" Rocca (Giuseppe Rocca 1857).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mats_Lidström

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Bengt Forsberg (born 1952 in Edsleskog) is a Swedish pianist. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Gothenburg, then continued his training with Peter Feuchtwanger in London and Herman D. Koppel in Copenhagen. Forsberg is one of Sweden's leading pianists and is particularly esteemed as a recital accompanist. He has become known for his wide repertoire and his constant interest in finding neglected music. Forsberg may be the most esteemed and in-demand accompanists. Among the artists he regularly accompanies are cellist Mats Lidström and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf, as well as mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.

https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Forsberg-Bengt.htm

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