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Review.
STRAUSS: Cello Sonata with RACHMANINOFF: Cello Sonata
Ulrich Boeckheler; Susan Starr, p
Mastersound 31 (Allegro) 63 minutes
with THUILLE: Cello Sonata
Sophie Rolland; Marc-Andre Hamelin, p
ASV 913 (Koch) 56 minutes
Three big romantic cello sonatas here. The Rachmaninoff disc more or less stars pianist Starr, a very experienced performer who has mastered the art of making a piano sound creamy except when called on for feats of derring-do. This is a somewhat different kind of pianism than the composer's, whose performances always had a certain feeling of tension and nervous energy. The cellist is also on the smooth side, so these readings are plush and exciting with technique to burn but seem to relax into a mellow sound too often for my taste: Art Tatum where I hear Thelonious Monk, so to speak. In the Strauss it is clearly the cellist who leads the free and relaxed first movement, breathing easily where even the genial Rostropovich pushes forward. This is a genial and busy work and doesn't suffer from being given more room to spread than usual, and the performance is beautifully organized and smooth as silk. Strauss doesn't really seem to change character markedly at different tempos: his music is so alert and immediate that it responds well at any reasonable speed: it's the immediate mood of the performance that counts--and the balance of voices and the use of sonority. In these areas Boeckheler and Starr are excellent.
Rolland and Hamelin are also excellent. To the smoothness of Boeckheler and Starr they counter a youthful exuberance that is perhaps more suitable to the teen-aged composer, though it also exposes the somewhat insistent rhythmic structure of I more than the much-inflected reading of B & S. Honors are about even in the slow movement, which is hard to spoil. R & H begin the last movement with a fine burst of speed and joie de vivre and maintain it beautifully, though the Rofland's rather tasteless slides and exaggerated phrasing spoil some of the phrases along the way. Neither of these performances seems ideal.
Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) will always remind me of James Lyons, who started me writing for the ARG. Thuille was one of Jim's enthusiasms and, like him, left us too early. A contemporary and friend of Strauss, his music has much of Strauss's energy and imagination, as this sonata of 1901-2 shows. At 30 minutes to Strauss's 26, it is a somewhat longer and more serious work in the same fast-slow-fast layout but with a 13-minute dramatic slow movement and plenty of warmth and passion. There is no competition for it in the catalog, and this performance is lively and makes a good case for it.
Copyright Record Guide Publications Mar 1995