Composer: Peteris Vasks
Performer: Sol Gabetta, Irène Timacheff-Gabetta
Orchestra: Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Conductor: Candida Thompson
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Sony
Catalogue: 88725423122
Release: 2015
Size: 600 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Concerto No. 2 for Cello and String Orchestra, “Klatbutne / Presence”
01. I. Cadenza – Andante cantabile
02. II. Allegro moderato
03. III. Adagio
04. Musique du Soir
Gramata cellam
05. I. Fortissimo
06. II. Pianissimo
The main work on this CD is a world premiere-recording of Peteris Vasks’ Concerto No. 2 for Cello and String Orchestra “Klātbūtne / Presence” written for Sol Gabetta and commissioned by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Gabetta and the orchestra premiered this work in Amsterdam on October 25th 2012 to critical acclaim. Vasks himself was closely involved in the recording of the concerto for this album, and the piece also temporarily combines Sol‘s cello with her voice in a fascinating manner. Sol Gabetta can be heard singing in the third work of the album “Gramata Cellam”, a 13-minute piece for cello solo that Gabetta has often performed as an encore at her concerts worldwide. The album also includes Vasks’ “Musique du Soir” for cello and organ, which features Sol Gabetta’s mother Irène Timacheff-Gabetta, organ, a professional organ player, performing the organ part. The album was recorded with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, directed by their leader Candida Thompson.
It was in 2012 that Latvian Peteris Vasks composed Klātbūtne (Presence) for cello and string orchestra, on the instigation of Sol Gabetta. A whole world separates this recent work, inscribed in a rather tonal language – in line, for example, of Schnittke, and sometimes Shostakovich – to 1978’s Grāmata čellam for solo cello, with which Sol Gabetta ends this new recording. This latter work, in two movements: Fortissimo and Pianissimo, is still tinged with the vanguard of the time, at least in the way it was designed by Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Penderecki. With Klātbūtne, Vasks offers some of the most moving and profound of today’s written music to the cello of Sol Gabetta, who certainly knows how to draw out the true substance of the piece. We will also hear Musique du soir for cello and organ, an infinitely soft and beautiful melody, rooted in a nostalgia worthy at times of Gabriel Fauré himself.