The recordings of cellist Matt Haimovitz often have an experimentalist cast, but on this recital of French cello-and-piano music, gracefully accompanied by pianist Mari Kodama, he plays it straight and achieves fine results. Haimovitz puts together a strong program of music that, as he notes, takes up the question of just what is French about French music. He covers several generations of composers, from Fauré to Poulenc, but unites everything into a gentle, nostalgic mood. Nothing is really overly familiar, and along the ...
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The recordings of cellist Matt Haimovitz often have an experimentalist cast, but on this recital of French cello-and-piano music, gracefully accompanied by pianist Mari Kodama, he plays it straight and achieves fine results. Haimovitz puts together a strong program of music that, as he notes, takes up the question of just what is French about French music. He covers several generations of composers, from Fauré to Poulenc, but unites everything into a gentle, nostalgic mood. Nothing is really overly familiar, and along the way, there are some interesting rarities by the Boulanger sisters, Lili and Nadia, whose output continues to yield attractive works. It is often Lili who is thought the stronger of the pair as a composer, but Haimovitz's transcription of her Two Pieces for violin and piano rests a bit uncomfortably at the top of the cellist's range, but Nadia's Three Pieces for cello and piano, native to the cello, are fascinating and unlike much else from the creatively fertile period in which they...
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