It was twenty-one years ago when the
young cellist Steven Isserlis, for his
debut release for Hyperion, recorded
the Brahms cello sonatas with pianist
Peter Evans on Hyperion CDA66159. The
disc deservedly became one of the label’s
early best-sellers. Isserlis is regarded
as one of the foremost cellists of our
time and has now re-recorded these works
for the same label, this time in partnership
with his colleague, the renowned pianist
Stephen Hough.
The sonatas come from very different
periods in Brahms’s life. They have
proved to be enduring and are invaluable
assets to the cello and piano repertoire,
almost indisputably the most important
cello sonatas from the second half of
the nineteenth century. Isserlis in
his booklet notes writes of them
as cornerstones of the repertory
that perfectly convey the passion their
composer had for the instrument which
he mastered in his youth.
The three movement Cello Sonata No.1
has been described as a pastoral work
with elegiac overtones. Brahms composed
it between 1862 and 1865 during an especially
fertile period that included the composition
of the second String Sextet Op.
36; the Piano Quintet Op. 34;
the Cantata: Rinaldo Op. 50 and
the mighty Ein Deutsches Requiem,
Op. 45.
In the extended opening movement of
the weighty performance from Isserlis
and Hough immediately struck me as pacier
than I have previously been used to.
Nevertheless, their playing is certainly
authoritative and the duo skilfully
bring out its brooding and ruminative
character. The central movement allegretto
comes as a welcome relief and is given
a charming and light-hearted interpretation.
The partnership in the concluding
movement, which is a robust mixture
of fugue and sonata form,
takes the music by the ‘scruff of the
neck’ performing with vigour and absolute
determination.
Expansive in form and extrovert in character
the four movement Cello Sonata No. 2
was composed in 1886 and is a very different
proposition to the earlier sonata. Brahms
completed the score during his highly
productive summer holiday at Hofstetten,
near Thun, where he also composed two
other of his best-loved chamber music
masterpieces, the radiant Violin Sonata
in A major, Op. 100; and the terse and
passionate Piano Trio in C minor, Op.
101. If the brooding and nostalgic E
minor Cello Sonata shows Brahms the
young man presenting his credentials
as a scholar and a mature gentleman,
the whirlwind of concentrated energy
of the F major Cello Sonata is the work
of an older man composing music with
all the passion and sweep of youth.
Biographer Walter Niemann described
the exclamations of the cello in the
extraordinarily bold opening movement
of the F major as, "outcries,
and appeals of wild agitation."
The duo robustly convey with considerable
artistry the feverish character of the
movement, where the instruments are
pitted against each other in a wild,
storm tossed sea of tremolandi.
The soaring melody, which is the heart
of the richly styled adagio,
is especially well performed by
Isserlis. Powerful and dark, the scherzo
is unusual for its spacious design
and notable for its strength of material.
It is played with significant vitality
and a strong sense of purpose. Isserlis
and Hough in the concluding movement
do not entirely provide that lightness
of touch that the music requires; however
their playing of the quiet and sensitive
coda is especially effective.
There are several really collectable
versions of the sonatas. The best known
are the recordings from the heavyweight
partnerships of Harrell and Kovacevich
on EMI Classics CDC5564402; Du Pré
and Barenboim on EMI Classics CDC5572932;
Ma and Ax on RCA Victor Red Seal Classic
Library 82 876 59415 2 and Rostropovich
and Serkin on Deutsche Grammophon 410
510-2. My personal recommendation is
for the lesser-known, yet no less wonderful
accounts, from cellist Pieter Wispelwey
and pianist Paul Komen on Channel Classics
CCS 5493. Using original instruments
with period performance practice these
1992 Netherlands interpretations offered
me considerable new insights into the
scores.
Dvořák’s
Waldesruhe and the Rondo
are most agreeable scores and the partnership
of Isserlis and Hough are in fine form
throughout. The cello timbre sounds
marvellous in the charming leading melody
of Waldesruhe a work that is
so evocative of nature. The Rondo
was
inspired by Dvořák’s anxiety and
sadness at leaving his homeland for
an extended period in America. The music
is shrouded in a light mist of sorrow
a mood that the duo of Isserlis and
Hough thoughtfully capture.
I have admired Waldesruhe and
the Rondo for many years. I still
play my 1977 Prague recording on vinyl
of the orchestral transcriptions performed
by Miloš Sádlo with the Czech
Philharmonic Orchestra under Václav
Neumann on Supraphon 1-10-2081/2. This
is coupled with the Cello Concerto
in A major (realisation and orchestration),
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op.
104 and Polonaise in A major.
Suk’s Ballade and
Serenade are his only scores
for cello and piano. That unmistakable
Czech charm suffuses these scores and
is admirably communicated with both
precision and passion.
The balance between the
two performers is especially well done
by the sound engineers and the booklet
notes provided by Isserlis are an interesting
read. Performed with vitality and robustness
this is up there with the established
catalogue leaders. An extremely fine
recording that is worth adding to any
chamber music collection.
Michael Cookson
Steven Isserlis, cello 
for
details
