Tovey - Chamber Music Vol.3: Complete Cello Sonatas | Toccata Classics TOCC0497

Tovey - Chamber Music Vol.3: Complete Cello Sonatas

£13.25

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Label: Toccata Classics

Cat No: TOCC0497

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 5th August 2022

Contents

About

Sir Donald Tovey (1875–1940) has long been known as one of the finest writers on music in English – but he saw himself primarily as a composer. His occasionally turbulent friendship with Pau Casals was the spur for a monumental concerto and one of his three cello sonatas: for solo cello, two cellos and cello with piano. The cello was the ideal instrument for Tovey’s Brahmsian musical language, with its long, singing lines unfolding in effortless counterpoint – though the huge Passacaglia that ends the solo Sonata also demands a virtuoso technique. The brief Bach arrangement recorded here for the first time arose when the twelve-year-old Tovey added a cello line to one of Bach’s best-known preludes, originally for lute.

Alice Neary plays this demanding work with immense skill and dedication, and she is impressively supported by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by George Vass. The disc also includes a charming Air from an early quartet and recently arranged for orchestral strings by Peter Shore and the Elegiac Variations for cello and piano (Gretel Dowdeswell) which Tovey wrote in 1909 in memory of the cellist of the Joachim Quartet. A revelatory issue.’ – Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph (TOCC0038: Cello Concerto)

‘A very creditable performance, too, from the Malmö Opera Orchestra under George Vass, who also acquit themselves most ably in the noble Prelude to Tovey’s 1918 opera
The Bride of Dionysus which launches proceedings. as well as exceptionally detailed notes and analyses by Peter R Shore and the composer respectively, add to the attractions of this courageous and valuable issue from Toccata Classics.’ – Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone (TOCC0033: Symphony in D)

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