Elliot Carter Recording for cello and piano

Fanfare July/August 1992

CELLO SONATAS OF 1948. Tilmann Wick, cello; Heasook Rhee, piano. MD+G L3397[DDD]; 63:01.
Produced by Werner Dabringhaus and Reimund Grimm. (Distributed by Koch International.)
MIASKOVSKY: Sonata No.2 in A minor, op.81. CARTER: Sonata for Cello and Piano. Poulenc: Sonata
for Cello and Piano

If one wants to assemble a CD-ful of high quality, wide-ranging big works for cello with piano, it
seems all one need do is find a vintage year and set to work. Here are three sonatas whose main
thrusts are, respectively, gentle nostalgia, vaulting heroism, and sheer lyrical exuberance. That’s
as wide a range as I can imagine sifting out a single year in this century; mull over with the cello
repertoire and see what you can come up with!
The pleasant surprise is the capacity with which Wick and Rhee take on this demanding task,
producing performances of strong profile, fine focus on detail and color, and accurate aim at
central character. Best work in this splendid lot is lavished upon Elliott Carter’s big sinewy
sonata, more commonly treated in high –contrast, low-gradation monochrome, but here always
bright and exuberant, with rhythmic organization completely under control.
MD+G may ordinarily be depended upon to make chamber-music record of unexceptionable
balance and body; they have done so once again. Strongly recommended!
John Wiser

American Record Guide
July/August 1992

Cello Sonatas of 1948
by Miaskovsky (No.2); Carter;
Poulenc
Tilmann wick; Heasook Rhee, p
MD+G 3397 (Koch International)
63 minutes

This kind of programming
appeals to me and offers a
launching-pad for a lecture on
postwar styles, which I shall try
to keep to a dull roar. Nikolai
Miaskovsky, trying to stay alive in
Stalinist Russia, writes a warm
but bitter brew for Rostropovich
to play in an autumnal romantic
style like a dream of distant
beauty. Elliott Carter, in a relieved
but disillusioned America, moves
from Coplandesque simplicity on
to new frontiers in metric
modulation and towards the
increased alienation between
players that he was to develop
further in the series of quartets he
began two years later. Poulenc
tries to help overcome the debility
of post-war France by recalling a
happier past with a vigor that
tends to become vehement. All of
these major works which Wick
and Rhee play with passion and
understanding, underlying the
stylistic differences with a
smooth, mellow tone for
Miaskovsky but laying into Carter
with a linear power and a fearless
gutsy punch. Both here and in the
volatile Poulenc, the cellist’s
attacks and pizzicatos tend to
have a disturbing amount of snap
off the fingerboard, an effect used
sparingly by Carter and I think
never by Poulenc. Otherwise,
these are excellent performances
of some fine music.
D. MOORE

STEREO

JUNI 1992

CELLOSONATEN VON 1948
Werke von Mjaskowski, Carter und Poulenc
Tilmann Wick (Violoncello), Heasook Rhee (Klavier)
MD+G/Helikon L3397
CD, Spieldauer 63’01” DDD

The performance of the three sonatas by Tilmann
Wick and the Korean pianist Heasook Rhee who lives
in New York, is powerfully capturing, colourful and
graceful; Carter’s metric finess and rhythmic drive,
Miaskovsky’s ardent longing and melancholic
reflection, and Poulenc’s theatrical gesture and
opulent diversity. The duo impresses with their
sensitive musical congeniality and the technical
supremacy.

Das Entstehungsjahr 1948 ist den drei Cellosonaten
gemeisam, kompositorisch trennen sie Welten.
Die Kammermusik wurde Elliott Carter zum
Experimentierfeld. Die Idee der “metrische Modulation”
beim äußerst differenzierten Tempovorschriften, die ab
seinen ersten Streichquartett von 1951 zur ureigensten
Sprache wurde, war neben den Möglichkeiten der
Zeitstruktuerierung während der Komposition der
Cellosonate entstanden.
Die romantische russische Kammermusiktradition
beschwörte Nikolaj Mjaskowski (1881-1950), einstiger
Vorkämpfer der Avantgarde, in seiner Sonate.
Weitgesponnene Kantilenen, sanfter Lyrismus
bestimmen das Werk, einen Nachruf auf vergangene
Zeiten. Ironisch, verspielt, empfindsam, im Idion des
französischen Neoklassizismus, ist Francis Poulencs
Stück, das er mit der Bertung von Pierre Fournier
geschrieben hatte.
Zupackend, farbig und anmutig spielen Tilmann Wick
und die koreanische, in New York lebende Pianistin
Heasook Rhee die drei Sonaten: Carters metrische
Rafinessen und rhythmischen Drive, Mjaskowskis
sehnsuchtsvolle, melancholischen Gestus und
Abwechslungsreichtum. Das Duo beeindruckt durch die
feinfühlige musikalishce Übereinstimmung und die
spieltechnische Souveränität.
Hubert Böhm

Die Ernte eines Jahres: 9
Musik: 9
Klantechnik: 9