Search - Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy :: Schubert, Debussy / Rostropovich, Britten

Rostropovich/Britten Recording is a Gem

Nancy M. Smith | Ellicott City, MD United States | 05/01/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This remastered 1968 Decca recording of the collaboration of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Benjamin Britten is nothing less than a model of inspired chamber music performance. The most lovely part of the album is the duo's performance of the Schubert "Arpeggione" sonata. The simple work, often difficult to make interesting in performance because of its simplicity, shines like a rare gem due to the highly sensitive playing of Benjamin Britten. Added to this is Rostropovich's wonderfully song-like presentation of the composer's melodies. While I find the duo's performance of the Schumann "Fuenf Stuecke im Volkston" to be somewhat stodgy, I have enjoyed becoming acquainted with the work through this recording. Although a bit dull, the music is still played with clear purpose and direction. I originally bought this CD because I wanted to have a fine recording of the Debussy cello sonata. I was delighted to hear this intricately interwoven performance. Rostropovich's performance is clear in its execution and intent, yet appropriately murky in its impressionistic delivery. I often replay the performance immediately because of the excitement the two musicians exude.For those interested in intricate chamber music performances, this CD is a "Must Have"!"

Desert Island Disc stuff here!

JP Nightingale | 03/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is chamber music at its absolute finest. Britten was a pianist of extraordinarily understated warmth and sensitivity and the perfect accompanist to Rostropovich's soaringly beautiful cello playing. This is really is a music date beyond the every day, where something truly magical occurred between two legendary musicians. Apart from this, the quality and tone of recording are second to none. Other reviewers on this site have sniffed slightly at the choice of music, dismissing the Schumann in particular as unsophisticated. Don't listen to them. This is playing of such beauty and passion that, if you are a fan of even just one of the composers featured here - Schubert, Schummann or Debussy - you simply cannot afford to ignore this."

Magisterial recordings from 1968 and 1961

Discophage | France | 09/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are indeed magisterial readings, actually dating from 1961 (Schumann and Debussy) and 1968 (Schubert), in superb transfers. The front cover of this Decca Legends CD reissue is a little misleading about these dates, but the inside pages are clear and awesomely complete about this info and more on the technical processes, with the welcome bonus of reproductions of the two original LP covers from which these three pieces are culled.



They are ample, highly-charged romantic readings, leisurely in tempo, hightlighting the brooding wistfulness of Schubert's sonata rather than its youthful geniality, with warm, lyrical, indeed vocal tone and a wealth of nuances from the cellist, magnificent attention to dynamics and articulation from the pianist and superb listening of each other. How can anyone hearing this call the arpeggione sonata a "minor" work eludes me. The same values are applied to the Debussy sonata, resulting in a highly original and convincing interpretation, far removed from the relative dryness that characterized the French tradition of interpretation of that piece (witness Maréchal and Casadesus 1946 recording, reissued by Sony in their complete Casadesus collection). Ample, brooding, profound, harrowing, conjuring an enigmatic sound-world, with the second movement cello pizzicatos explosive like a menacing jazz double-bass: at their hands the sonata sounds like a meditation on approaching death (this was indeed one of Debussy's last compositions) - almost like a composition of Britten, one is tempted to say, and it is hard to imagine it played otherwise after that experience.



Decca's reissue poses a tricky problem of coupling and duplication, though. The Debussy and Schumann originally came on an LP with Britten's cello/piano sonata, and the Schubert was initially paired with Frank Bridge's cello/piano sonata. Now Decca has aptly reissued the Britten in an homogeneous coupling with the composer's two first solo cello suites, performed again by Rostropovich, an indispensable disc for any Britten and/or Rostropovich admirer - or just music lover (Cello Suites). But the Bridge they have reissued on CD again with the Schubert, as in the original LP - an understandable choice if not very generous in terms of timing (52'), but one that imposes on the record buyer an irksome duplication with the present disc (Schubert: Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano; Bridge: Sonata for Cello and Piano).



Bridge was Britten's teacher, so the latter's advocacy of his music is perhaps understandable, yet the cello sonata sounds to me like a broodingly romantic but ultiately impersonal and dull affair, and if forced to chose I would rather be with Schubert-Schumann-Debussy (more favorable in timing too, with 59') than with Schubert-Bridge. However, if like I do you consider that anything recorded by Britten and Rostropovich is of significance, Decca has reissued the Bridge sonata in one of their "British Music Collection" (470-189-2), paired - not very generously in terms of timing (57') - with 3 tone poems recorded in 1996 by the Academy of Saint-Martin in the Fields led by Neville Marriner (originally published in a collection called English Seasons, with tone poems by Bax, Delius, Foulds and Grainger), plus a short song by Kathleen Ferrier. It seems available only from Amazon.uk, though.



Anyway - yes, this Schubert-Schumann-Debussy is indeed of legendary stature.

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