Britten: Suites for cello solo, Nos. 1-3

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Muller-Schott has all the technical resources at his deposal, and opens the First Suite with just the right weight and poise...what Schott brings to all the Suites is a sharpness and power reminiscent... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th May 2011
Catalogue No: C835111
Label: Orfeo
Length: 70 minutes

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Britten: Suite No. 1 for cello solo, Op. 72

Work length25:20

$9.00

$11.70

Daniel Müller-Schott

Canto primo. Sostenuto e largamente

Track length2:36

$1.00

$1.30

I. Fuga. Andante moderato

Track length4:06

$1.00

$1.30

II. Lamento. Lento rubato

Track length2:39

$1.00

$1.30

Canto secondo. Sostenuto

Track length1:15

$1.00

$1.30

III. Serenata. Allegretto pizzicato

Track length2:13

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Marcia. Alla marcia moderato

Track length3:44

$1.00

$1.30

Canto terzo. Sostenuto

Track length2:10

$1.00

$1.30

V. Bordone. Moderato quasi recitativo

Track length3:09

$1.00

$1.30

VI. Moto perpetuo e canto quarto. Presto

Track length3:28

$1.00

$1.30

Britten: Suite No. 2 for cello solo, Op. 80

Work length20:55

$6.00

$7.80

Daniel Müller-Schott

I. Declamato. Largo

Track length3:51

$1.00

$1.30

II. Fuga. Andante

Track length3:33

$1.00

$1.30

III. Scherzo. Allegro molto

Track length1:46

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Andante lento

Track length4:43

$1.00

$1.30

V. Ciaccona. Allegro

Track length7:02

$2.00

$2.60

Britten: Suite No. 3 for cello solo, Op. 87

Work length23:45

$10.00

$13.00

Daniel Müller-Schott

I. Introduzione. Lento

Track length2:41

$1.00

$1.30

II. Marcia. Allegro

Track length1:50

$1.00

$1.30

III. Canto. Con moto

Track length1:28

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Barcarolla. Lento

Track length1:38

$1.00

$1.30

V. Dialogo. Allegretto

Track length1:50

$1.00

$1.30

VI. Fuga. Andante espressivo

Track length2:51

$1.00

$1.30

VII. Recitativo. Fantastico

Track length1:11

$1.00

$1.30

VIII. Moto perpetuo. Presto

Track length0:50

$1.00

$1.30

IX. Passacaglia. Lento solenne

Track length4:56

$1.00

$1.30

Mournful Song. Molto semplice

Track length4:30

$1.00

$1.30

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To be the dedicatee of a work by Benjamin Britten was a much coveted honour among 20th-century classical musicians. And for an artist to be the dedicatee of a whole series of works, then the musician in question – unless he happened to be Peter Pears – must have felt exceptionally blessed.

Britten’s three Cello Suites are an example of such an exception. They were written over a period of barely a decade for Mstislav Rostropovich, and it was he who gave them their first performances. They are generally regarded as three of the greatest and finest challenges ever to be set a cellist. Daniel Müller-Schott, who had an opportunity to study with Rostropovich, faces up to this challenge with great enthusiasm and superior musicianship.

The First Suite contains stylistic and formal reminiscences of the Baroque, and Daniel Müller-Schott brings to it great nobility of tone, just as he refuses to be discouraged from striking a note of genuine emotion in the Canto passages. That his artistry is also underpinned by astute analytical skills is clear from the rigour that he brings to the part-writing in the fugue and concluding Moto perpetuo. This ability to maintain an overview of a piece also pays dividends in the Second Suite, with its rhythmically and thematically carefully balanced design, including the final Chaconne – a form whose climactic possibilities Britten had already exploited to supreme effect when writing for the full orchestra in his opera Peter Grimes. In the final movement of the Second Cello Suite the composer had no hesitation in placing similar demands on a single instrument. It is almost a foregone conclusion that a performer capable of rising to this not inconsiderable challenge will also shine in the third and last of these suites. At the time of its first performance in 1974, Britten was already too ill to fulfil his promise to write six such suites. Daniel Müller-Schott captures the work’s valedictory character, with its reminiscences of Russian folksongs and the Hymn to the Departed, bringing a keen eye for detail to the writing and not only pin-pointing all its musical beauties but revealing the ways in which those beauties are refracted through the composer’s elegiac lens. Rarely can 20th-century works have been so atmospherically interpreted.

Reviews

October 2011

Muller-Schott has all the technical resources at his deposal, and opens the First Suite with just the right weight and poise...what Schott brings to all the Suites is a sharpness and power reminiscent of Rostropovich himself...this is an impressive set.

October 2011

Müller-Schott lays with honeyed and burnished tone through the three works. The gorgeous, mourning long notes of the First Suite's Lamento show his blemishless technique...The beauty of his sound makes the Shostakovich Suite No. 2 heroic, the Declamato like a RADA-trained town-crier and the Ciaconna a smooth, mesmerising snake.

October 2011

For their consistently high technical standards and imagination, Müller-Schott's performances are as recommendable as any among recent recordings.

Offer,Britten: Suites for cello solo, Nos. 1-3

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