Credits:

Cuarteto Casals

Description:

Concertos by Shostakovich and Zinzase by Germany's most promising young cellist, Hornung. Both works were written in 1966 and have in common that they are overshadowed by the composer's physical and mental illness. Shostakovich's second cello concerto is a work dominated by a dark tone, influenced by the fact that he began composing it while suffering from asthma and then suffered a heart attack. At the same time that Rostropovich's first performance in Moscow was a success, far to the southeast in Georgia (now Georgia), then part of the Soviet Union, the national composer Zinzase was completing a five-episode cello concerto. Hornung, who says that one of his teachers, Georgian-born Eldar Isakase, taught him the splendor of Zinzase, sings each of the characteristic episodes in a unique way with his own technique and expressiveness, and gives a performance that more than satisfies the demands of the composer, who was originally a cellist. In the darker moods that continue in Shostakovich's music, Hornung brilliantly depicted a mysterious tone that is created by a peculiar sense of uneasiness and floating, intertwined with humor.The excellent recording by MYRIOS is also a must-hear. Naxos Japan