The Andante
Cantabile of the title, meaning “singable andante”,
tells us that this is yet another collection of down-tempo
melodic pieces – and so it is. However the singing aspect
is more prominent than usual, not only because Lynn Harrell’s
cello sings more meltingly than most but also since several
of the pieces are vocal numbers from the beginning. The
effect is also no doubt due to Harrell’s longstanding
and deep relationship with the human voice. In the first
place his father Mack Harrell (1909–1960) was one of the
leading American baritone singers of his day. Through him
Lynn naturally got an interest in singing that made him
an almost fanatical listener to the great singers on record. “I
realise, to my surprise”, he writes in his very personable
liner notes, “how many of the … musical memories I have
in my ear are of singers.” And even if he hasn’t consciously
striven to adapt the characteristics of the human voice
to his own playing it has no doubt influenced him.
We
find in this collection some of the obvious cello encores
but also quite a few that we probably didn’t expect – and
there are even some real rarities. As so often with collections
of this kind it is best enjoyed a few pieces at a time, unless
you play it as wall paper, but that would be a pity with
so much exquisite musicianship at work. And when I, as reviewers
regularly do against their better judgement, played the whole
recital through at one sitting I never had that creeping
feeling of long-windedness and monotony, but sings the cello
most certainly does. One of the most well-known of all the
pieces, von Paradis’s Sicilienne, (tr. 2) demonstrates
all the qualities of Harrell’s playing: the mellifluous tone,
the delicate shadings, a perfect trill, the seamless legato
and real affection for the music. The pianist, naturally
in a programme like this, mostly plays a secondary role but
there are also pieces where the two musicians are on more
equal terms. This is certainly the case in Fauré’s Sicilienne which
is uncommonly swift, and Ravel’s Pièce en forme de habanera. Bruno
Canino never disappoints.
A
look at some of the individual numbers tells us that Saint-Saëns’ immortal
swan swims as it were only half visible in a kind of subtly
misty dreamscape. I get a feeling that Harrell sometimes
plays the music entirely to himself, for his own pleasure
and we are privileged to be eavesdropping through a half-open
door. This is one of those instances. But Glazunov’s Spanish
Serenade is fiery, though even here he scales down to
something more intimate, until Canino reminds him that this
is sunny Spain, so some stomping of feet and the odd castanet
is not out of order. More Iberian flavours Spain come in
the shape of the Intermezzo from Granados’s Goyescas, an
opera that is based on the piano suite which in its turn
was inspired by Goya’s paintings. This Intermezzo is
a piece I learnt to like ages ago through an EP with Karajan
and the Philharmonia. Here Canino’s walking bass lays the
foundations for Harrell’s intensely singing cello. It’s a
lovely piece, also in this arrangement – by whom we are not
told which leads me to think that Harrell modestly avoids
to mention that it is his own work.
Schubert’s
F minor Moment musical also seems tailor-made for
the cello. It seems that whenever I have heard this music
on the piano I have imagined the legato of a stringed instrument
behind the percussive piano sounds.
In
his notes Harrell mentions Elisabeth Schumann’s recordings
of Schubert songs as major listening experiences. They “revealed
to me a world of stylised delicacy”, he says, something he
recreates in An die Musik and Nacht und Träume.
Not even Schumann could spin such long unbroken phrases.
Where’er
you walk evokes memories of
McCormack’s recording with those characteristic soft Irish
consonants. The tenor voice, in particular McCormack’s,
and the cello are like second cousins, and that’s possibly
the reason why McCormack and Kreisler’s violin blended
so well.
I
don’t think I had ever noticed the name Hillemacher until
a couple of weeks ago when I reviewed John Mark Ainsley’s
new disc with French melodies L’invitation au voyage (see
review).
There
were a handful of songs by Paul Lucien Hillemacher, which
was a composite name for two brothers who worked together.
The eldest of them, whose full name was Paul-Joseph-Guillaume
also published music on his own and the Gavotte tendre was
one of them. It has been recorded by several cellists, Pablo
Casals among them in the late 1920s, when the composer was
still alive. It annoys me that I had never made a mental
note of it.
Catalani’s
well-known aria from La Wally also lends itself well
to Harrell’s singing cello. The opera itself, premiered in
Milan in 1892 is rarely heard today but Toscanini held it
in high esteem, so much so that he named his daughter, who
later married Horowitz, after the heroine. This aria is what
has survived.
A banquet was
held in the splendid castle in the season of the cherry
blossom.
Where is the light now, that shadowed the glasses and flew through the old
pines?
Thus reads, in an approximate English translation,
the first stanza of Bansui Doi’s (1871 – 1952) poem that is the basis for
Rentato Taki’s Kojo no tsuki. Taki was born in Tokyo and studied at
the Tokyo Music School, where this song also was published in Songs for
High School Students in 1901. He went to Europe for further studies in
Leipzig but fell ill after just three or four months and returned to Japan
where he died on 29 June 1903, not yet 24 years old. The music has a certain
Asian flavour and makes a nice contrast with the rest of the programme, which
has a solemn “encore” to this collection of encores in Bloch’s Prayer. Harrell
and Canino lavish all their skill and commitment on this music that should
be heard more frequently.
Readers
who have followed me this far probably need very little acumen
to realise that I have enjoyed this disc enormously. “Light
music” it may be, but light music is not synonymous with
cheap music and performed with such musicality and conviction
even the most hackneyed of pieces are shown in a new light.
Göran Forsling
BUY NOW
AmazonUK AmazonUS
Lynn Harrell
(cello) 
