Brahms: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 & Clarinet Trio Ophélie Gaillard & Pulcinella Orchestra

• Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99
• 1 I. Allegro vivace 08:30
• 2 II. Adagio affettuoso 06:22
• 3 III. Allegro passionato 06:46
• 4 IV. Allegro 04:33
• Cello Sonata No. 1 In E Minor, Op. 38
• 5 I. Allegro 14:17
• 6 II. Allegretto quasi minuetto 05:18
• 7 III. Allegro 06:23
• Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
• 8 I. Allegro alla breve 07:31
• 9 II. Adagio 07:28
• 10 III. Andantini grazioso 03:57
• 11 IV. Finale - allegro 04:25
• Total Runtime 01:15:30

Info for Brahms: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 & Clarinet Trio

Brahms's important output of 24 chamber scores dominated the second half of the 19th century, as that of Beethoven had dominated the first half. His corpus was thus a response to that of Beethoven, his model, and to that of Mendelssohn, who was likewise born in Hamburg and also composed two cello sonatas. In 1890, aged only 57, Brahms resolved to give up composing but he had reckoned without the inspiration that his meeting with the Meiningen clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld was to have on his creative imagination. He subsequently added four scores for clarinet to his output, including this Trio Op. 114.

“Gaillard has always displayed an extraordinary palette of colours and these some alive more than ever on this recording...the voyage into earlier repertoire since her last such disc...seems to have informed her playing with even more subtlety than before.” (Gramophone)

Ophélie Gaillard, cello
Fabio Di Càsola, clarinet (on Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114)
Louis Schwizgebel, piano

Ophélie Gaillard
… could we read in the editorial published in the Diapason magazine of June 2011, (Ophélie Gaillard was awarded the Diapason d’Or for the Suites of Bach). The English Newspapers also underlined this appreciation. In August 2011, The Strad magazine wrote that “Gaillard was at the top “ whereas in 2007 The Times already welcomed her “wizard fingering, big lyrical heart, and kaleidoscope of colors”.

This brilliant Franco-Swiss musician embodies an insatiable curiosity, a taste for risk and an immoderate appetite for the whole of the concertante cello repertoire.

Voted “Revelation: Solo Instrumentalist of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2003, she has since then appeared in recital at many prestigious venues.

Ophélie Gaillard is a child of Baroque. From a very young age, she was specialized in the early and classical cellos and soon shared the stage with Christophe Rousset, Emmanuelle Haïm and Amaryllis. Then, in 2005, she found Pulcinella, a collective of virtuosos with a passion for performance practice on period instruments. The recordings devoted to Vivaldi, Boccherini and Bach reaped excellent ratings and several awards.

In 1998, she was the winner of the Leipzig Bach Competition. Then, in 2000 she recorded Bach’s complete Cello Suites for the Ambroisie label and enjoyed a great critical acclaim. She renewed that exploit in 2011, this time for the Aparté label, and received maximum ratings from Diapason, Strad magazine, etc.

Ophélie Gaillard also performs modern and contemporary works. She has made successful recordings of Britten’s complete cello suites or Pierre Bartholomée’s Oraison.

The Romantic repertoire is not neglected: she has successfully recorded the complete cello works of Schumann, Fauré, Chopin and Brahms.

She appears as a soloist with the Orchestre de Cannes-Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, the Polish Radio Orchestra (Gabriel Chmura), the Orchestre de Picardie (Edmon Colomer), the European Camerata, the Franz Liszt Orchestra of Budapest, the New Japan Philharmonic under the baton of Werner Andreas Alpert, the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, the Romanian Radio Orchestra or else, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of James Judd.

Her solo album Dreams, made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, proved to be a great public success.

A sought-after teacher, she regularly gives master classes in Europe, Asia and in Latin and Central America. She is invited as a member of the jury at the ARD competitions and is a professor at the Haute Ecole de Musique of Geneva (HEM) since 2014.

She is regularly heard on radio (France Musique, France Culture, France Inter, Radio Classique, Espace 2, BBC Radio 3) and often appears on television (France 2, Mezzo, Arte).

In December 2015, her double-CD album Alvorada won over a vast audience and was named a ‘Star Recording’ by The Strad magazine. This programme, blending ‘highbrow’ and popular Spanish and South-American music went on tour in 2016 through France, Italy (MiTo festival), and Mexico (Cervantino Festival), in particular with the Brazilian singer Toquinho.

After the international success of her first album (Diapason d’Or in 2014, special recognition from the Strad magazine, concerts in France and Germany…), a second recording of CPE Bach for the Aparté Label will be released in 2016 with the Pulcinella Orchestra and incensed by the press (Diapason d’Or, Choc de la Musique Classica, ffff Télérama, Gramophone …).

She was invited to play for the prestigious concert series given at the honour court of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco. She subsequently recorded her next disc Exils (expected release in Spring 2017) around the concertos of Korngold and Bloch with the Philharmonic orchestra of Monte Carlo and supervised by James Judd.

Ophélie Gaillard plays a cello by Francesco Goffriller (1737), generously loaned to her by CIC, and also a Flemish violoncello piccolo (anonymous).

This album contains no booklet.