Because solo cello music is fairly limited in its tonal palette and severely exposed in its textures, it requires a great deal of melodic and harmonic invention to compose full-length works for it. There is only a handful of major compositions for the instrument -- counting J.S. Bach's six unaccompanied cello suites, Zoltán Kodály's sonata, and the three suites by Benjamin Britten as supreme achievements of the genre -- so Michael Hersch showed considerable courage in composing his Sonatas No. 1 and No. 2 for unaccompanied ...
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Because solo cello music is fairly limited in its tonal palette and severely exposed in its textures, it requires a great deal of melodic and harmonic invention to compose full-length works for it. There is only a handful of major compositions for the instrument -- counting J.S. Bach's six unaccompanied cello suites, Zoltán Kodály's sonata, and the three suites by Benjamin Britten as supreme achievements of the genre -- so Michael Hersch showed considerable courage in composing his Sonatas No. 1 and No. 2 for unaccompanied cello, mainly because he inevitably invites comparisons to his predecessors. Fortunately for his reputation, and for his listeners' benefit, Hersch is a highly creative composer who clearly understands what can be technically accomplished with the cello, and understands that its music has to encompass both lyrical and the virtuosic aspects to sustain interest. The Sonata No. 1 (1994) is heavily weighted up front with two slow movements, and only its third movement can be considered a...
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