Elgar and Dvořák: Cello Concertos album review – Gerhardt’s readings are forthright, refreshing and thoughtful
Gerhardt/WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Manze (Hyperion) Alban Gerhardt eschews the romantic, heart-on-sleeve interpretations of these famous concertos, and finds nobility and poetry even in the most turbulent
Gerhardt/WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Manze (Hyperion) Alban Gerhardt eschews the romantic, heart-on-sleeve interpretations of these famous concertos, and finds nobility and poetry even in the most turbulent music Alban Gerhardt adopts a back-to-basics approach in these thoughtful readings of cello concertos by Elgar and Dvořák.
Determined to counter ideas embedded in the collective musical psyche by the likes of Jacqueline du Pré and Mstislav Rostropovich, there is a straightforwardness here, and a refusal to luxuriate that may not please those used to more heart-on-sleeve interpretations. Nevertheless, by scrutinising the scores – and few composers were as pernickety with their markings as Elgar – he finds much that is refreshing as well as illuminating.
In the Dvořák, he’s less theatrical, more poetic than his Soviet-born predecessor, aided by Andrew Manze, who keeps the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln clipped and generally light on its feet. Gerhardt’s is a noble, cleanly articulated performance that yearns where others prefer to gush and keeps its feet firmly planted in the Bohemian countryside, even when the music is at its most turbulent.
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