Choosing the music of Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne may seem a curious decision for a first volume of French Works for Cello and Piano. After all, Widor (César Franck's successor as director of the Paris Conservatoire) and Vierne (one of Widor's star protégés) might not even be names that came up for most listeners when trying to consider just which French composers did write for cello and piano: Debussy, Franck, Fauré, and Saint-Saëns to list but a few of the more familiar names. Widor (who wrote both a suite and a ...
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Choosing the music of Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne may seem a curious decision for a first volume of French Works for Cello and Piano. After all, Widor (César Franck's successor as director of the Paris Conservatoire) and Vierne (one of Widor's star protégés) might not even be names that came up for most listeners when trying to consider just which French composers did write for cello and piano: Debussy, Franck, Fauré, and Saint-Saëns to list but a few of the more familiar names. Widor (who wrote both a suite and a sonata) and Vierne (who wrote one sonata) were both able-bodied composers, highly regarded in their day. Their works for cello and sonata have not panned out to be cornerstones of the repertoire, however, and a performance of these works would need to be extremely powerful to warrant their inclusion on Vol. 1. That is precisely what cellist Peter Bruns and pianist Annegret Kuttner pull off. Their playing is entirely captivating and by the end of the album, one may wonder why these...
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