Zoltán Kodály - Cello Sonata & other works (Natalie Clein; Julius Drake)

Information

Composer: Zoltán Kodály

• Sonata, Op. 8 for solo cello
• Sonatina, Op. 4
• 9 Epigrams
• Romance lyrique
• Adagio

Natalie Clein, cello

Julius Drake, piano

Date: 2010

Label: Hyperion

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Review

I can remember first hearing the Kodály Solo Sonata, nearly 50 years ago, and being amazed at its scope and at the composer’s extraordinary resourcefulness. Something of this sense of wonderment returned on listening to Natalie Clein’s account; she produces an astonishing range of colours and evokes the widest variety of expressive styles. I find it admirable, too, how she’s able, in the recording studio, to maintain so much of the excitement and directness of live performance. Music of this rhetorical character demands a fine sense of timing; Clein demonstrates this, and her air of conviction is sustained through the first movement’s intense declamation, the Adagio’s rich, low-range melodies, the finale’s dance rhythms and the eerily quiet “natural” sounds that punctuate the discourse. It must be said that Clein is more concerned with expression than beauty of tone in her effort to capture something of the roughness and raw edges of folk music.

The rest of the programme has a more refined character and Julius Drake’s expressive playing is a fine match for Clein’s outgoing manner. There’s a noble performance of the well known Adagio and a sensitive account, stressing its impressionistic features, of the 1922 Sonatina. The Epigrams of 1954, intended originally as vocalises, are delightful short pieces with only subtle hints of Kodály’s nationalistic style. These, too, are beautifully and simply played, with Clein keeping to the original vocal range, I imagine. A recording of great immediacy points up the variety of the programme, from the Sonata’s grandeur and vividness to the intimacy of the Epigrams.

— Duncan Druce

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Zoltán Kodály (16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a prominent Hungarian composer. He was also an important figure who contributed heavily to music education in Hungary. As a composer, Kodály created an individual style that was derived from Hungarian folk music, contemporary French music, and the religious music of the Italian Renaissance. His notable works, many of which are widely performed, include Psalmus Hungaricus (1923), the opera Háry János (1926), Marosszék Dances (1930), Dances of Galánta (1933), Te Deum (1936), Concerto for Orchestra (1941), Symphony in C Major (1961), and chamber music.

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British cellist Natalie Clein studied with Anna Shuttleworth and Alexander Baillie at the Royal College of Music, then studied with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna. She came to prominence after winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1994 and was the first British winner of the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians. Since then she has been regularly invited to work with major orchestras, conductors and musicians worldwide. Clein records regularly for Hyperion and has received a Diapason d’Or, Gramophone Disc of the Month and a Brit Award. She plays on the "Simpson" Guadagnini cello (1777).

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Julius Drake (born 5 April 1959) is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician. He was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music, and now is Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and visiting professor at the Royal Northern College of Music. Drake's many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with Gerald Finley for Hyperion Records, with Ian Bostridge and Alice Coote for EMI, with Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Matthew Polenzani for Wigmore Live, and with Anna Prohaska for Alpha.

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