Truls Mørk, Louis Lortie, Hélène Mercier, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Neemi Järvi – Saint-Saëns: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; The Carnival of the Animals; Africa; Wedding-cake (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:26 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos Records
The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Neeme Jrvi present this unusual collection of popular works by Saint-Sans, for orchestra and piano or cello.
Truls Mrk, this season Artist in Residence with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, is the soloist in the two contrasted cello concertos. His ‘seemingly flawless technical command’ is tested in the suave, expressive, famous No. 1 as well as in the many taxing solo passages, huge leaps, and double-stopping flourishes of No. 2.
The indefatigable duo Louis Lortie and Hlne Mercier join in the posthumously published Carnival of the Animals, after a highly successful recording of Concertos by Poulenc with Edward Gardner, Disc of the Week in The Sunday Times. They offer the original version, which features a glass harmonica (normally substituted by a glockenspiel). Louis Lortie is also the soloist in the entertaining fantasia Africa, which incorporates folk tunes of the different countries in which it was composed and which is brought off with consummate zest, as well as in the most characteristic and probably challenging of the composer’s keyboard pieces, the Caprice-Valse Wedding-cake, written for the second wedding of the composer’s virtuosic pianist friend Caroline Montigny-Rmaury.
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Colin Currie, Truls Mørk, Helsenki Philharmonic Orchestra, John Storgårds – Rautavaara: Modificata, Towards the Horizon & Incantations (2012/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:02:22 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2xHD – Ondine
This new recording couples Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s latest concerto works with an orchestral piece from his early Modernist period (Modificata; 1957/2003). The virtuoso Percussion Concerto Incantations (2008) features the Scottish percussion soloist Colin Currie, who is the dedicatee and première performer of this work. Currie wrote himself the virtuoso cadenza to the final movement. Rautavaara’s Second Cello Concerto Towards the Horizon (2009) was written for cellist Truls Mørk and plays continuously in one 20-minute movement. Reviewing the premiere the Star Tribune noted that the composer “acknowledges a ‘taste for eternity’ and a vain of mysticsm runs through his work.” Einojuhani Rautavaara is recognized as one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius. His recordings on Ondine have been bestsellers and garnered numerous awards (including a recent GRAMMY nomination for his opera Kaivos). Under their chief conductor John Storgårds, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra builds on long-time pedigrees of performing their compatriot’s music.
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Colin Currie, Truls Mork, Helsenki Philharmonic Orchestra & John Storgards – Rautavaara: Modificata – Incantations – Towards the Horizon (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:02:22 minutes | 2,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 2xHD – Ondine
This Grammy-nominated recording of world premieres comes with a long list of critical accolades and awards from around the world. The programme by the Helsinki Philarmonic Orchestra under John Storgårds couples Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s most recent concerto works with an orchestral piece from his early Modernist period, Modificata. Rautavaara’s cello concerto Towards the Horizon was written for cellist Truls Mørk and is performed continuously in one 20-minute movement.
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Truls Mork, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Hannu Lintu – George Enescu – Symphonie Concertante; Symphony No. 1 (2016)
DSF Stereo DSD128, 1 bit/5,6 MHz | Time – 53:56 minutes | 4,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Booklet, Front Cover | © 2xHD/Ondine Oy, Helsinki
The final release of the George Enescu (1881-1955) symphony cycle includes two neglected masterpieces: the 1st Symphony filled with youthful energy and the poetic and lyric Symphonie concertante for Cello and Orchestra. The soloist of the Symphony concertante is the award-winning cellist Truls Mørk.
Enescu wrote both of the works at a relatively young age: the Symphonie concertante was written at the age of 20 and the 1st Symphony was premiered when the composer was 25 years of age. Even so, Enescu had already created himself an impressive career as a composer with several large-scale works.
The Ondine recordings with Hannu Lintu and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra have proved to be extremely successful. The first release of the Enescu cycle received Gramophone Awards Nomination 2013. Hannu Lintu and the orchestra also received GRAMMY nomination for their recording of Rautavaara’s Kaivos Opera.
Truls Mørk & Håvard Gimse – Bridge, Britten, Debussy: Cello Sonatas (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:59 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
The great Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk makes a triumphal return to chamber music with his regular piano partner Håvard Gimse. The programme features two English composers, Benjamin Britten and his teacher Frank Bridge, whose Cello Sonata was written during the First World War and is tinged with despair and searing emotional force. Britten composed his Cello Sonata in 1961, following his meeting with Mstislav Rostropovich, to whom he dedicated the work. Another person traumatised by the Great War was Debussy, who wrote: ‘It was cowardly to think only of the horrors being committed, without trying to react by rebuilding, insofar as my strength allowed, a little of that beauty which is currently under attack.’ His Cello Sonata (1915) was the first of a series of six sonatas for various instruments that he planned to compose, only managing to write three before his death. As a determined Moravian nationalist, Janáček did not entitle his three-movement work of 1910 ‘sonata’; he called it Pohádka (Fairy tale) and based it on a poem by Vasily Zhukovsky.
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