Chin: Cello Concerto Alban Gerhardt, Berliner Philharmoniker & Myung-Whun Chung

• Unsuk Chin (b. 1961): Cello Concerto:
• 1 Chin: Cello Concerto: I. Aniri 09:42
• 2 Chin: Cello Concerto: II. 02:54
• 3 Chin: Cello Concerto: III. 07:25
• 4 Chin: Cello Concerto: IV. 06:35
• Total Runtime 26:36

Info for Chin: Cello Concerto

The music of Unsuk Chin is a magical realm in which new perspectives are constantly unfolding. Labyrinths of novel sounds and complex structures can be followed by moments of transcendental beauty. For us as an orchestra, this world poses certain challenges — indeed, it is part of Unsuk Chin’s style to test the limits of performing techniques. Or, to put it another way, she lets us show off our strengths. Her inventiveness exemplifies the inexhaustible vitality of today’s music. These qualities have made Unsuk Chin one of few composers with whom we’ve collaborated so frequently and productively.

About the work: For the four-movement cello concerto, Unsuk Chin was inspired by the “unique artistry of Alban Gerhardt”. The dedicatee premiered it in 2009 at the London Proms under Ilan Volkov and also presented the new version for the first time in 2013 under Kent Nagano in Munich. "The Guardian" described Chin's transparent work as "the most important cello concerto since Lutoslawski in 1970", which never obscures the soloist despite the large orchestral forces and richly explores the specific lyrical qualities of the instrument, despite all the technical difficulties.

Only very rarely does Unsuk Chin refer to the musical traditions of her native Korea. In the cello concerto there is actually a narrative anchor: the first movement Aniri is named after a term from Korean pansori theater and describes the narrative passages in these "one-man operas". And like the actor in an epic song, the cellist captivates everyone. It is introduced by barely audible, delicate touches from the two harps: they provide the central note G sharp, which is repeatedly used as an orchestral rallying point in the course of the movement and taken up by the soloist. Tubular bells and celesta are added, and the soloist's melodic line becomes more and more free. The spectrums between singing and noise are explored using highly differentiated playing techniques such as various harmonic degrees or hitting the bow stick on the string. The orchestra shadowily follows the cello, takes up a rhythmically concise figure, spreads a seductively glittering field over arpeggios and harmonic passages from the soloist - nine triangles support the impression of shimmering and floating. The short cadence leads back to the central note G sharp. The dreamy lingering is interrupted by an abrupt detonation - the orchestral extinction is mixed with improvisational, feverishly flickering impulses from the cello. With the instruction "as fast as possible", Chin pays tribute to the cello concerto of her teacher Gyo¨rgy Ligeti.

The frenetic, scherzo-like second movement was revised again after the premiere and its beginning was even composed from scratch. This sentence was "the only one that I had a very clear idea of at the beginning of the composition process. However, what came out at the end of the work was something completely different," said Chin before the revision. The soloist drives the action forward with motor drive, supported by the ostinato of the percussion. The strings' sixteenth note chains descend like lightning, played on the bridge with rich overtones. Unexpectedly in this rapid short ride, a melody enriched with artificial overtones unfolds in the cello, taking up Chin's original idea of writing a stylized folk song.

The following third movement acts as an extreme contrast and yet as if connected by a common exhalation and inhalation. This time the soloist establishes the central note G, around which a delicate chorale-like aura from the orchestra surrounds itself. With all its sensitivity, the cello spins out a chorale melody, accompanied by the low strings in a static, floating manner. After a culmination, the strings take up the chorale, then the woodwinds, accompanied by the cello in a dark contrapuntal countermovement. The ghostly end of the movement spreads out even more: the cello disappears into the highest harmonic regions, the gnarled contrabassoon descends to the earth.

After these spherical sounds, the orchestra gives the soloist a real blow in the last movement: hard chords fall on him, the sextuplet trembling of the violins attacks him, as a review of the premiere puts it, "like a swarm of hornets". The cello counters the incessant massive tutti attacks with searching, wandering figures. Unsuk Chin speaks of “psychological warfare”. After an explosion of orchestral colors, the cellist takes over the trembling, aggressive figure, until suddenly a long-winded melody, reminiscent of the Aniri movement, lights up again. The epic narrator doesn't let the collective get him down - he sings his soul unimpressed, accompanied only by a threatening motif from the double basses. The beauty in Unsuk Chin's music is always an endangered one. (Kerstin Schüssler-Bach)

Alban Gerhardt, cello
Berliner Philharmoniker
Myung-Whun Chung, conductor

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Booklet for Chin: Cello Concerto