Catalogue

Summary:

“With this programme, Croisé shows he’s got it all – technical chops, impeccable musicianship and imaginative daring.” – Gramophone

“This is a great exploration of diverse contemporary works for solo cello” - The Strad

“From the get-go, The Solo Album packs a punch … an emotional thrill ride that testifies to the power of the cello when placed in the hands of a gifted virtuoso” - Strings

Modernism. Multiculturism. Multi-tuning. Lockdown. These are among the elements that bind the works on The Solo Album by award winning cellist Christoph Croisé, who took the opportunity of 2020’s coronavirus isolation to work intensively on a variety of solo works and also turn his hand to composition.

At the heart of the album is Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály’s epic Sonata, the first major work for solo cello after the suites by Johann Sebastian Bach which were written two centuries earlier. The virtuosity demands of the soloist re-tuning two of the cello’s strings, double-stop trills and simultaneous bowed and plucked passages, all of which Christoph dispatches with aplomb. Framing Kodály’s Sonata are works by two compatriots, György Ligeti’s two-movement Sonata which draws inspiration from Béla Bartók, and the more recent Stonehenge by cellist, composer and pop-music producer Péter Pejtsik which includes intimations of electric guitar. A “sandwich filler” is Christoph’s first composition for solo cello, Spring Promenade, which is infused with boogie-woogie, reggae, swing and techno. He took inspiration from Sicilian composer-cello virtuoso Giovanni Sollima whose Concerto Rotondo incorporates electronics and extended techniques. Closing out the album, Sollima’s short work Alone gives way to the album’s “encore”, the exuberant Some like to show it off by Croatian cellist-composer Thomas Buritch.

Tracklist:

GIOVANNI SOLLIMA (b. 1962)
1-4. Concerto Rotondo for solo cello
i. Lento con liberta 03:26
ii. Allegro 04:06
iii. Yafu 03:57
iv. Allegro 04:00

GYÖRGY LIGETI (1923–2006)
5-6. Sonata for solo cello
i. Dialogo 03:58
ii. Capriccio 03:52

CHRISTOPH CROISÉ (b. 1993)
7. Spring Promenade 04:12

PÉTER PEJTSIK (b. 1968)
8. Stonehenge 04:26

ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882–1967)
9-11.   Sonata for solo cello Op. 8
i. Allegro maestoso ma appassionato 08:07
ii. Adagio (con grand espressione) 10:55
iii. Allegro molto vivace 11:32

GIOVANNI SOLLIMA
12. Alone 05:03

THOMAS BURITCH (b. 1972)
13. Some like to show it off 03:46

Total time: 71:27

Christoph Croisé, cello