Brahms and Bach: Cello and Piano
Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach
RCA Red Seal / Pid / 1355669
Recorded at La Ferme de Villefavard, Limousin, France
'Here are two performers of one mind musically. Their interpretations of all three Bahms Sonatas are beautifully paced, distinctively shaped and detailed. Cooper's reading of Kurtág's arrangement of Bach's BWV106 'Actus tragicus' is a haunting gem.'
BBC Music Magazine, August 2008
'[In the] Brahms's cello sonatas… Sonia Weider-Atherton and Imogen Cooper… hold the tension for the very soft, near nostalgic beauty of the E major coda, as they do for the many bars of pianissimo writing in the last movement of the Second Sonata. Not since Mstislav Rostropovich and Rudolf Serkin have these works been interpreted with such compulsive acuity... The Bach transcriptions are persuasive. . . Cooper steals this particular show in a meltingly moving re-creation of the Sonatina from Cantata No 106 that ought to be played first and last.'
Gramophone, October 2008
TRACKLISTING
DISC 1
J.S. Bach arr. Wieder-Atherton/Cooper
1 Aria from Cantata No. 78, 'Jesu, der du meine Seele,' BWV78 (BCA130)
Johannes Brahms
2 - 5 Sonata for cello and piano No. 2 in F major, op 99
J.S. Bach arr. György Kurtág
6 Cantata No. 106, 'Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,' Actus Tragicus, BWV106 (BCB18)
Johannes Brahms
7 - 9 Sonata for cello and piano No. 1 in E minor, op 38
DISC 2
J.S. Bach arr. Wieder-Atherton/Cooper
1 Aria from Cantata No. 33, 'Allein zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,' BWV33 (BCA127)
Johannes Brahms arr. for cello by composer
2 - 4 Sonata for violin and piano No. 1 in G major ('Regen'), op 78