Schumann Complete Works for Cello

This album features Schumann's Complete Works for Cello played by Ella van Poucke, the winner of the prestigious Premio Chigiana in 2017 and most recently the Grachtenfestival Prize. She is accompanied on the album by pianist Jean Claude Vanden Eynden and the Phion Orchestra of Gelderland & Overijssel conducted by Gunter Neuhold. Schumann composed his Cello Concerto in about two weeks during November 1850. Before Schumann, few major composers had written cello concertos. Schumann avoids technical display for its own sake, allowing his characteristic poetic expression, intimacy, and fantasy to prevail. Schumann originally scored the Fantasiestücke Opus 73 (1849) for clarinet and piano but simultaneously provided alternative arrangements for violin or cello. In his choice of clarinet Schumann was typically innovative. The three pieces are melodically interrelated, creating a unity underlined by the absence of breaks between them. Schumann's Adagio and Allegro in A flat major, Opus 70 dates from a week after the Fantasiestucke Opus 73. He originally intended his Opus 70 for the new valve horn, though he named cello, violin, or viola as alternative instruments. The piece is fully characteristic of Schumann's Romantic spirit. The expansive and dreamily romantic Adagio gives way to an Allegro with a leaping, joyful main theme. Just as Schumann had wanted “popular elements” to prevail in his Rhenish Symphony (1850), the Fünf stücke im Volkston (1849) are correspondingly simple, tuneful, and accessible. Nevertheless, Schumann's creative imagination and wide expressive range are no less apparent. Ella says "I would like to invite you into a world I love dearly. The fantasy rich world of Robert Schumann’s music. As a child I was intrigued by what I sensed to be the captivating and magical inner world of Schumann’s music. Years later I came to understand that the raw intuition that drew me to this music as a child was a spellbinding quality that characterizes Schumann’s music and to this day fascinates me." Ella van Poucke - Cello Jean Claude Vanden Eynden - Piano Phion Orchestra of Gelderland & Overijssel Gunter Neuhold - Conductor [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15DYuEUk96I[/embed]