Gaspar CASSADÓ (1897-1966)
Suite for Solo Cello [15:36]
Zoltan KODÁLY (1882-1967)
Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8 [30:05]
Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 [27:16]
Antonio Meneses (cello)
Claudio Cruz (violin)
rec. 26 September 2014 (Cassadó), & 10-14 August 2015 (Kodály), St. Peter’s, Evercreech, UK
AVIE AV2351 [73:23]
Name a famous cellist born in Catalonia in the late 19th century. Yes, Pablo Casals (b.1876) of course, but score an extra point if you answered Gaspar Cassadó. In fact Cassadó went on to study with Casals - and with Ravel and Falla, quite some pedigree for a cellist-composer. He wrote many original works and transcriptions for the cello, and in 1926 wrote both his
Cello Concerto and this Cello Suite in homage to Bach and his six solo cello suites that were rescued from obscurity by Casals. Cassadó’s suite consists of three dance movements;
Preludio-Fantasia (a Zarabanda or Sarabande), Sardana (the national dance of Catalonia), and
Intermezzo e danza finale (a Jota). The first movement includes quotations from Kodály's Sonata for Cello Solo also on this disc, and the flute solo from Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé.
Antonio Meneses has all the virtuosity needed for the suite, with fast precision in the passagework and delicate filigree ornamentation quite delicately etched in. There is a nice effect near the end of the middle movement Sardana, when the dactylic rhythm of the allegretto from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony provides an accompaniment to the melody, all neatly managed on just four strings. Meneses has fine control of his tone high in the register, as at the meditative start of the finale, before the high stepping Jota brings in the invigorating dance music that closes the suite.
Zoltán Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello must be the most important, or at 30 minutes at least the most substantial, work for solo cello between the suites of Bach and those of Britten. Kodály himself boasted "in 25 years no cellist will be accepted who has not played it". The instrument requires scordatura retuning, which leaves the two upper strings unaltered while the lower strings are each tuned down a semitone. The piece is in B minor/major, and Kodály used the retuning to extend the cello’s expressive range. The opening movement is marked Allegro maestoso ma appassionato (“majestic but passionate”) and Meneses has sufficient of both without exaggerating the rhetorical dimension, of which some other cellists have made rather more. (There have been dozens of recordings; Kodály’s compatriot Janos Starker made four of them.) The central Adagio con gran espressione opens in gruff stillness, and continues with a lamentation which again Meneses keeps eloquent but in scale. The mood of this part of the performance is one of keening, not deep tragedy, with the most expressive use of tone colour across the wide range that Kodály deploys. The central con moto section is played with compelling vigour, as is the whole of the final Allegro molto vivace, which a is a real tour de force. This sounds a deeply considered interpretation of the Sonata, so that we can hear why Meneses wanted to preserve it, and why the cellist himself holds the copyright of the recordings on this disc.
Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello was written the year before the solo cello sonata, and Meneses is quoted in Julian Haylock’s very helpful booklet note as saying “Although in certain respects the Duo’s idiom is more advanced including occasional passages of bitonality, it feels less intimidating when two instruments share the material as opposed to the inherent struggle of the Sonata, in which the cellist has to be both soloist and accompanist.” Claudio Cruz’s violin is just as eloquent as Meneses’s cello, right from the opening rhetorical flourish, through the many passages in the first movement (and elsewhere) that recall Kodály’s work as a folksong collector. The particular highlight is an arresting account of the strange and often unsettled
Adagio central movement, at times each entry sounding as if the instruments are seeking to outdo each other in passionate, improvisatory declamation. Well recorded like everything else, the Duo makes a fine close to a fine disc.
Roy Westbrook
