Britten / Bach / Ligeti Miklós Perényi

• Third Suite for Cello, Op.87 (Benjamin Britten)
• 1 Introduzione: Lento 02:15
• 2 Marcia: Allegro 01:34
• 3 Canto: Con moto 01:08
• 4 Barcarola: Lento 01:12
• 5 Dialogo: Allegretto 01:09
• 6 Fuga: Andante espressivo 02:32
• 7 Recitativo: Fantastico 01:09
• 8 Moto perpetuo: Presto 00:51
• 9 Passacaglia: Lento solenne 08:43
• Suite for Cello Solo No.6 in D, BWV 1012 (Johann Sebastian Bach)
• 10 Prélude 05:31
• 11 Allemande 06:34
• 12 Courante 03:50
• 13 Sarabande 05:42
• 14 Gavotte I - II 04:32
• 15 Gigue 03:56
• Sonata for Solo Cello
• 16 Dialogo: Adagio, rubato, cantabile 03:59
• 17 Capriccio: Presto con slancio 03:35
• Total Runtime 58:12

Info for Britten / Bach / Ligeti

Miklós Perényi plays Benjamin Britten’s Third Suite op. 87 and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite VI D-Dur BWV 1012, making plain an historical interconnection. Britten wrote his cello suites for Rostropovich, inspired by hearing him playing the Bach suites. Rostropovich hailed all of Britten’s cello suites as masterpieces but singled out the third (written 1971) for special praise: “sheer genius”, in his words. Into the fabric of the thematic material Britten wove fragments of melodies from Russian folk songs, only allowing them to emerge fully in the final movement. On this disc, Bach’s last cello suite follows Britten’s, and Perényi’s Bach dances with elegance and energy. The album concludes with a return to Hungary, and Ligeti’s cello sonata of 1948-1953. Ligeti released the piece for publication only in 1979, so it figures in the chronology (as Paul Griffiths points out in the notes) both before and after the Britten. This disc is Perényi’s first ECM solo recital, and follows his brilliant performance, alongside András Schiff, in the 2001/2 recordings of the Complete Music for Piano and Violoncello by Beethoven.

After inspired performance alongside András Schiff on the prize-winning recording of Beethoven’s Complete Music for Piano and Violoncello (Cannes Classical Award, Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik), and earlier important contributions to György Kurtág’s Musik für Streichinstrumente, here is Miklós Perényi’s first ECM solo recital recording. The album was recorded in the exceptional acoustic of the Auditorio Radiotelevisione svizzera, Lugano, highly responsive to the Hungarian cellist’s sound and dynamic range. As Paul Griffiths writes, “Through Perényi’s artistry we come to understand how the sound of the cello – such a rich sound here, as natural as wood, with the grain and the strength of wood – cannot be separated from the composition being realized, nor the composition from its instrument. There is no music without sound, and there is no sound without music. Perényi’s sound speaks to us warmly and sagely and also humorously of the cello, of its sonorous possibilities, of its exceptionalness in western music as a solo instrument that addresses us from a low register, of its whole history and culture. We cannot forget for a moment that what we are hearing is cello sound, and the fine detail of this recording may even convince us at times that we are hearing the action of the cello being played. Yet in no way does this diminish our closeness to the music. On the contrary, the more we hear the sound, the more we hear the music.”

This album of solo cello music, with a spirited account of Bach's D major Suite VI, BWV1012 at the centre, offers a chance to hear the Hungarian cellist Miklós Perényi (b.1948) at his virtuosic best. A one-time pupil of Pablo Casals, Perényi has a warm, big-boned, springy tone and brings expressive variety to Britten's Suite No 3 Op 87 (1971), written in a matter of days for his friend Rostropovich. Its nine short movements unfold as if from one musical seed, flowering in the final Passacaglia, which is almost as long as the total of the preceding sections. Ligeti's two-movement, folk-inspired sonata (1948-53), dating from the dark days of Hungary and not approved for broadcast by the Soviet authorities, makes an atmospheric conclusion. (Fiona Maddocks, The Observer)

Miklós Perényi, cello

Engineer: Stephan Schellmann
Production coordinator: Guido Gorna
Executive Producer: Manfred Eicher

Born in Hungary, Miklós Perényi began cello lessons at the age of five with Miklós Zsámboki, a student of David Popper. At nine, he gave his first concert in Budapest and went on to study between 1960 and 1964 with Enrico Mainardi in Rome and, in Budapest, with Ede Banda. In 1963 he became a prize-winner at the International Pablo Casals Cello Competition in Budapest. Casals invited him to his master classes in Puerto Rico in 1965 and 1966, and he went on to become a frequent visitor to the Marlboro Festival. Since 1974 he has taught at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, and has held a professorship there since 1980. He was honoured with the Kossuth-Prize in 1980 and the Bartók-Pásztory-Prize in 1987. Beyond performing and teaching, Perényi also devotes his energies to composition of works for solo cello and for instrumental ensembles of various sizes.

He has worked closely with András Schiff for more than 20 years. Recently, the duo played at Cologne’s Philharmonie, the Schwetzingen Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall and the 92nd Street in New York. Another frequent chamber music partners include pianist Dénes Várjon (who also has a solo recital disc, “Precipitando”, released by ECM New Series).

Booklet for Britten / Bach / Ligeti