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recordings soloists & recitals

sublime schubert

As a violist, I’m a big fan of Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione (an now-defunct six-stringed instrument resembling a cello).  It has all the great melodic lines that you expect of Schubert, and it’s one of the great pieces written for any instrument.  Cellists like to claim it as their own, but there is nary an instrument that it hasn’t been stolen and arranged for.

French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras has long been a favorite musician of mine, and I recently discovered his recording of the Arpeggione Sonata with pianist Alexandre Tharaud (along with other Viennese works by Berg, Schubert, and Webern).  It’s an astonishing recording.  The Schubert is masterfully played, with such a variety of colors and the use of anywhere from no to quite a lot of vibrato, and Queyras simply makes me forget that he’s playing an instrument, it simply becomes an extension of his musical will.  Highly recommended.