Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra
Peter Eötvös conductor
Heinrich Schiff cello
Friedrich Cerha (*1926)
Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester
für Heinrich Schiff in Freundschaft
ECM New Series
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Click on the link below to hear an extract from the Cerha Cello Concerto performed by Heinrich Schiff:
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Cellist Heinrich Schiff delivers a transcendent performance of a cello concerto dedicated to him “in friendship” by Austria’s great composer Friedrich Cerha (born 1926). Under Peter Eötvös’s direction the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra explore the variegated textures of Cerha’s concerto. Cerha’s special combination of stylistic conviction and expressive diversity, much in evidence here, has been attributed to his intense involvement with the Second Vienna School (he is still best known for completing Act 3 of Berg’s ‘Lulu’)
Reviews for this disc:
"... dedicatee Heinrich Schiff is effortlessly in command of its interpretative challenges... the whole disc offers an unfailingly absorbing listen.“
Gramophone, Editor's Choice December 2007
Cerha's concerto is a significant addition to the cello repertoire and Schiff, its dedicatee, gives a committed and powerful performance... The first movement included a lyrical two-cello passage that called to mind the slow movement of the Schumann concerto, The middle movement is significantly different in mood, opening with a tranquil, undulating accompaniment, over which Schiff's cello soars serenely.
He emerges from the orchestral texture again in the last movement, for a subdued solo cadenza, which dissipates in more scurrying strings. The ending is exquisite and unusual - tiny harmonics like raindrops, finally disappearing into nothingness off the top of the fingerboard."
Strad Magazine, December 2007
“The Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha is best known for his completion of Berg’s opera Lulu, and second-best for his cello concerto, which Schiff performed at the Proms in 1999.
He repeats its gripping modernist convulsions here with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra under the incisive Peter Eotvos. Schiff’s solo line oozes serpentine charm whether haranguing or racing the orchestra, or sparring with exotic individuals – steel drum, marimba, harmonium. A fascinating disc.”
The Times, October 2007
“The Austrian Cerha’s cello concerto (1996), written for Schiff, began life as his 1989 Phantasiestück in C’s Manier – the allusion being to ETA Hoffmann and Schumann – before acquiring outer movements to become this full-blown, inventive, neo-Bergian essay, whose hectic discourse is permeated by sinuous organ sounds (they could be steel drums) and strains of lyric astringency. The performances are superb.”
The Sunday Times, October 2007
“… Cerha’s Cello Concerto, completed in 1996 for Heinrich Schiff, is a work of both substance and originality. Schiff himself is the eloquent soloist here, casting off reams of golden tone in the work’s lyrical central movement and never resorting to coarseness in the more energetic music.”
BBC Music Magazine, January 2008
“For sheer beauty alone, the transfixing central movement is reason enough to purchase the disc. Against a slowly shifting diaphanous orchestral backdrop, Schiff delivers a soaring cantilena that probes the extremes of the of the cello’s register. The movement’s oceanic calm is disturbed just once, by a more agitated interlude introduced by bustling sul ponticello strings. In stark contrast, the contrapuntally rich and texturally variegated outer movements… possess a granitic strength.
To say that the concerto places heavy demands on Schiff, to whom the concerto is dedicated ‘in friendship’, would clearly be an understatement. Heard in a clear cut pas de deux with percussion at one moment, battling against the full might of the ensemble the next, the cellist accepts the work’s technical challenges with aplomb – Schiff plays almost continuously – offering a performance that’s at once impressively fluent and deeply perceptive. Having given its world première in Berlin’s Philharmonie in 1998 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Gielen, as well as its UK première during the 1999 Proms season, he appears to own the work completely.
Peter Eötvös and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra explore the score’s ever-changing landscapes with consummate understanding… It makes one wonder why, when his oeuvre contains such boldly individual and powerfully communicative works as this, UK performances of Cerha’s music are so thin on the ground, One can only hope that this disc catches the ear of a concert promoter or two.”
International Record Review, January 2008