YSAŸE
Sonata for Cello Solo.
JONGEN
Sonata for Cello & Piano
•
Wesley Baldwin (vc); Christy Lee (pn)
•
CENTAUR 2649 (59:35)
Here we have two very serious and heavy cello sonatas, written approximately 12 years apart, and oddly the younger man’s composition (Jongen) preceded the older. The formats are also quite different, the Ysaÿe being a solo work using some techniques from the Bach cello suites while the Jongen is a more straightforward four-movement sonata for cello and piano.
What’s particularly interesting about the Ysaÿe is that it was written about the same time as his violin sonatas yet inhabits an entirely different world. It combines the technical demands of the Franco-Belgian school, the contrapuntal and improvisational style of German Baroque, and the cyclic form and harmonic style of French impressionism. Particularly interesting is the brief third movement, which acts almost as a recitative or introduction to the big fugue of the fourth movement. Yet even here, Ysaÿe marks his individuality by interrupting the fugue to play a modified version of the first-movement theme. It’s a thorny piece, not easy to listen to, as much for its bleak emotional landscape as for its formal anomalies. Baldwin’s performance is emotionally intense and richly expressive, his big cello tone reveling in its expressive pages while flowing easily through its technical difficulties.
The Jongen sonata, dedicated to Pablo Casals and debuted by him in 1913, inexplicably sank without a trace after World War I. Perhaps Casals, though flattered to be the dedicatee, didn’t really care for it or wasn’t as firmly committed to it as he was to the works of other composers. Following on the dark mood of the Ysaÿe piece, the Jongen is equally dense but in a different way. This piece is abstruse, fluid, and mysterious, often obscuring its structural joints. His harmonies are Impressionistic yet static, often rich and thick. He tends to obscure his use of harmony as a driving force with non-chordal tones or embellishments. Despite its interesting construction, I personally do not respond as well to it emotionally as I do the Ysaÿe piece. I find it too long and dense for my taste, too dark in tone through its first three movements, but I must honestly say that the last movement, with its
joie de vivre
, seems to be in a different emotional world, and I find it quite enjoyable.
Baldwin’s performance is excellent here as well, and Christy Lee provides excellent and appropriately understated accompaniment, her piano roiling under the surface rather than bursting in on the cello’s musings. The sound quality is fantastic.
There are six competing versions of the Ysaÿe sonata on CD, the best of which, oddly enough, is on the same label (Gordon Epperson, Centaur 2228). The most curious, and one I’ve not heard, is by Susanne van Els on viola (Et’Cetera 1395). Perhaps appropriately, the Jongen has but one competitor, Viviane Spanoghe on Talent 35. I haven’t heard that one either, but if any readers feel it is superior to Baldwin’s recording they are free to prefer it.
Lynn René Bayley
