Andrew Clements 

Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata; Debussy and Britten: Cello Sonatas, etc – review

Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley's tribute to Rostropovich and Britten is a considerable achievement, says Andrew Clements
  
  

Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley
Wonderful performances … Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley Photograph: PR

As they make clear in the sleeve notes, Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley designed the programme on this disc as a tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten, who made extraordinary recordings of these works together in the 1960s and early 70s. On their own terms, these performances are wonderfully achieved, too. Their account of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is airy and buoyant, and they adopt a robust and rustic approach to Schumann's Five Pieces in Folk Style Op 102. I'm not sure they pin down every aspect of Debussy's elusive Sonata – the music doesn't take wing in some passages – though they catch its lightning changes of mood perfectly, and they reveal Britten's work as one of the 20th century's greatest works for cello and piano, spanning a huge emotional range. Braley finds fierceness in some of the keyboard writing, while Capuçon's tone twists from lingering nostalgia to no-nonsense assertiveness. It's a considerable achievement.

 

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