Dvořák; Bloch; Bruch - Cello Concerto; Schelomo; Kol Nidrei (Pierre Fournier)

Information

Composer: Antonín Dvořák; Ernest Bloch; Max Bruch

• Dvorak - Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
• Bloch - Schelomo
• Bruch - Kol Nidrei, Op. 47

Pierre Fournier, cello

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / George Szell

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Alfred Wallenstein

Orchestre Lamoureux / Jean Martinon

Date: 1961; 1966; 1960

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Antonín Dvořák (September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer. He was the second Czech composer to achieve worldwide recognition, after Bedřich Smetana. Following Smetana's nationalist example, many of Dvořák's works show the influence of Czech folk music, such as his  two sets of Slavonic Dances, the Symphonic Variations, and the overwhelming majority of his songs. Dvořák wrote in a variety of forms: nine symphonies, ten operas, three concertos, several symphonic poems, serenades for string orchestra and wind ensemble, more than 40 works of chamber music, and piano music.

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Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer known for blending post-Romantic and neoclassical styles with Jewish musical themes. He studied in Switzerland and Belgium, taught at the Geneva Conservatory, and moved to the U.S. in 1916. Bloch became the first director of the Cleveland Institute of Music and later led the San Francisco Conservatory. He taught at UC Berkeley until retiring in 1952. Bloch's compositions, influenced by Debussy, Mahler, and Ravel, include Schelomo, Baal Shem, Avodath Hakodesh, Concerto Grosso No. 1, and Israel Symphony, among others.

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Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic composer known for his melodic and expressive works. He held conducting positions at Koblenz (1865), Sondershausen (1867), Berlin (1878), Liverpool (1880–83), and Breslau (1883–90), then taught at the Berlin Academy of Arts from 1890 to 1911. Bruch gained fame in his lifetime for large choral-orchestral works like Schön Ellen and Odysseus, though these fell out of favour over time. Today, he is best remembered for his Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, the Scottish Fantasy, and Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra, all of which remain concert favorites.

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Pierre Fournier (24 June 1906 – 8 January 1986) was a French cellist who was known as "the aristocrat of cellists". He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, graduating at 17, and gained fame in 1925 after a performance with the Edouard Colonne Orchestra in Paris. Fournier toured widely, collaborating with leading musicians of his time and making highly acclaimed recordings. He was also a respected teacher at the École Normale de Musique in Paris (1937–39) and the Paris Conservatoire (1941–49). After 1956, he made his home in Switzerland and continued performing in public until two years before his death.

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