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Emanuel MOÓR (1863-1931)
Cello Sonata in G major Op.55 (1901) [23:51]
Cello Sonata in C minor Op.22 (1889) [23:02]
Suite for four cellos Op.95 (c.1909) [20:50]
Gregor Horsch
(cello)
Carole Presland (piano)
Cellokwartet Amsterdam (Gregor Horsch; Judith Jamin; Pascale
Went; Sebastiaan van Eck)
rec. Bachzaal, Amsterdam, January 2007; June 2003 (Quartet) CELLO CLASSICS
CC1018 [67:32]
Casals
had particular enthusiasm for the music of his now less remembered
contemporaries; Röntgen and Tovey stood high and both have
recently been accorded a measure of disc appreciation. But
Moór was another and Casals’s words to the astonished composer
- “You are a Genius” – attest both to the Catalan’s overwhelming
artistic approval and the volcanic nature of his emotional
and musical attachments. If he thought you were a genius,
then you were a genius.
If
posterity has not accorded Moór that same position in the
compositional hierarchy then neither has it with Röntgen
or Tovey. Nevertheless there is no vapidity in these two
sonatas. The Op.55 sonata of 1901 is vaguely Brahmsian in
inclination – lyrical, and played here with a biting woody
tone and on-the-string passion by the outstandingly convincing
Gregor Horsch. He’s a thoroughly idiomatic-sounding and yet
idiosyncratic performer; one doesn’t often hear his kind
of playing. In the Magyar-sounding Scherzo he deals vibrantly
with the cello’s drone passages and sardonic exchanges. He’s
not at all shy of the greasy dig into the string, nor of
cultivating the bass-heavy and lowering register. Carole
Presland, too, mines richly from the cajoling piano responses;
together their veiled search and expressive underpinning
of the slow movement is valuable work. So is the their playing
of the finale which is avuncular without becoming trivial
and lit with a songlike freedom.
Back
in 1889 we find the Op.22 Sonata, dedicated to one of that
era’s greatest cellists, Alfredo Piatti, a much more freely
rhapsodic work. There’s some lovely cantilena here, which
must have sounded tailor-made for the Italian cellist, and
some demanding writing for the pianist. These two players
bring out the richness and bigness of it with magnificent
panache. The slow movement is intense and vibrant, once more
Brahmsian in cast but not at all in procedure or structure.
And the finale is led by commanding and dramatic piano writing
which manages – almost – to balance the strenuous cello passagework.
This isn’t a sonata on a par with Op.55 but it’s a strong
and accomplished work and it’s difficult to imagine much
more persuasive advocacy than this.
The
Suite for Four Cellos was written around 1909. At its premiere
the four players were Casals, Joseph Salmon, André Hekking
and Diran Alexanian – not a bad line-up. The writing here
is more reminiscent in places of Schubert amidst the expected
Late Romantic influences. It’s well laid out and the high
point is unquestionably the central movement. This is an
unusually grave and intoning stretch of time with a sublimated
Rabbinic-Cantorial aesthetic powerfully in evidence. Moór
was a Jew, born near Budapest, and his father – originally
a tenor – later accepted an appointment as a cantor in New
York. Though there are light Magyar influences in the sonatas
the Adagio’s gravity seems to derive from an altogether more
personal and intense place.
This
is an exceptionally fine disc. The notes are extensive and
well worth a read on their own; I resolved to follow their
lead and try to track down Max Pirani’s 1959 monograph on
Moór. His cello works are necessarily reflective of strong
influences and it would be wrong to pretend that they are
masterpieces. But with performances this ardent we can wallow
in the moment and relish the intensity of the music making.
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