Catalogue

Summary:

In the spring of 2019, Christoph Croisé scored a break-through with his critically acclaimed recording of Haydn’s Cello Concertos (AV 2402). With The Russian Album, he turns his attention to two towering 20th-century masterpieces, Sergei Rachmaninov’s early, eloquent and emotional Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 19, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s D minor Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 40. The latter work’s finale featured what would become the composer’s signature style of caricature and irony that proved too provocative to the Stalinist regime. Croisé also offers two “encores” – his own transcriptions of the March from Sergei Prokofiev’s propulsive opera The Love for Three Oranges, and Rodion Shchedrin’s flambouyant In the Style of Albéniz – and a bonus track by his compatriot, the Swiss cellist and composer Thomas Demenga, New York Honk, a humourous homage to the Big Apple’s cacophonous traffic noises.

Tracklist:

SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873–1943)
Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Op. 19
1. I. Lento – Allegro moderato (14.16)
2. II. Allegro scherzando (6.32)
3. III. Andante (6.20)
4. IV. Allegro mosso (10.59)

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975)
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40
5. I. Allegro non troppo (12.06)
6. II. Allegro (3.13)
7. III. Largo (7.39)
8. IV. Allegro (4.16)

RODION SHCHEDRIN (b. 1932), transcr. Christoph Croisé
9. In the Style of Albéniz (4.12)

SERGEI PROKOFIEFF (1891–1953) transcr. Christoph Croisé
10. March (from The Love for Three Oranges) (1.37)

BONUS TRACK

THOMAS DEMENGA (b. 1954)
11. New York Honk (2.07)

Christoph Croisé, cello
Alexander Panfilov, piano

Total duration: 73.33

Recorded 23 – 25 October 2017, Radiostudio Zürich, Switzerland
Tonmeister: Joël Cormier
Recorded in cooperation with SRF zwei