"…fluent and thoroughly satisfactory … a very satisfying performance”
MusicalPointers.co.uk
“… the musical give-and-take of these players is excellent: they seize upon the music with enthusiasm, energy and sensitivity – one can almost sense that they are keen to show us just how fine this music is … . This CD can certainly be strongly recommended. It is good to see these young artists taking up these works with such conspicuous success. ”
International Record Review
MusicalPointers.co.uk
Jamie Walton is a prolific studio recording cellist; he tours widely in concert, but I have not chanced to hear him live. I had been disappointed, particularly by the balance, in his recording of the Elgar concerto, but like this one far better.
Walton had previously recorded the Rachmaninov with one of my favourite pianists, Charles Owen, earning special plaudits in the Daily Telegraph [Somm, 2002] - I have not heard it.
The present account, with his regular duo partner Daniel Grimwood, is fluent and thoroughly satisfactory, but I felt greater engagement in the Grieg coupling, a very satisfying performance, with the two players equals and well engineered at Wyastone, February 2009. Recommended.
Peter Grahame Wolfe
International Record Review
In musical terms, this is a fine coupling of two works that have taken rather longer to enter the international repertoire than they ought. They are masterly compositions and the appropriate nature of this coupling can be gauged from the fact that Pablo Casals played both works each with the composer at the piano – but not in the same concert!
As these sonatas are now equally part of the mainstream cello recital repertoire, they are more familiar to us today than they were to previous generations, and yet that relative familiarity on our part can blind us to the individual qualities they possess. Rachmaninov was 27 when he composed his Cello Sonata (at the same time as the Second Concerto) in 1990; Grieg was 40 when his work appeared in 1883, but both works were written when the composers were recovering from troubling times in their personal lives. There is, therefore, an underlying character which unites these compositions – not so much of tragedy as of individual human experience – and this characteristic, almost indefinable but none the less present, means that the emotional heart of these works might not be though, on the face of it, to appeal to young musicians. Not that this comment is leading to a criticism of Jamie Walton and Daniel Grimwood – they are manifestly not ‘too young’ to tackle these works – for there is another aspect to Grieg and Rachmaninov which unites them rather more strongly: a cultures-geographical one, away from the Austro-Germanic domination of nineteenth-century European concert music. Their natural voices come not from that central European tradition but from the fresher, more urgent air of Scandinavia and Russia.
That sense of inner life in these works, the ‘moving forward’ often smoothed over by other artists, is brought out by Walton and Grimwood with commitment and clarity in these performances. They have manifestly not based their interpretations on those of other artists, such as we often hear in recital (and on disc, too) but have concentrated entirely on the music on the printed page and have managed to bring these works convincingly to life in a way that has impressed me very much.
Rachmaninov’s Sonata demands not only a fine cellist but a pianist with a virtuoso technique, yet the piano should never dominate the texture. On this disc, the musical give-and-take of these players is excellent: they seize upon the music with enthusiasm, energy and sensitivity – one can almost sense that they are keen to show us just how fine this music is – and they bring a welcome breath of fresh air to works that can so often give a different, and surely misleading, impression. Their tempos in the Rachmaninov are excellent: the work seems not a whit too long and they carry the listener with them in their almost tangible enthusiasm. Nor must this be thought of as a superficial performance: the slow Intermezzo-like movement is given with great repose and sensitivity (Rachmaninov wrote much of the work in Italy).
In the Grieg, their choice of tempo is again wholly convincing in a work that can also seem to have its share of longueurs, and I found their performance quite compelling in its one-ness of conception and musical integrity. Their account of the finale is magnificent. This is fine chamber-music playing from both artists.
With regard to the recording quality, the Rachmaninov Sonata has always posed problems of balance, specifically with regard to the (at times) intense and thick piano writing. It demands a player who does not make too much of its technical difficulties but integrates them expressively within the whole. In this regard, Grimwood is very good indeed, and the recording faithfully reflects those qualities. What is also impressive about this disc is that Walton knows when to take a back seat, so to speak, with a consequential enhancement of the music’s expressive nature. Throughout both works, his playing is outstanding, his phrasing a constant delight and always mindful of the needs of the phrase in question and its place in the overall context. The recording of the Grieg, not so heavily scored, is very fine indeed. This CD can certainly be strongly recommended. It is good to see these young artists taking up these works with such conspicuous success.
