Haydn: Cello Concertos featuring Rostropovich
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DVD details
DVD: Region Code 0Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 72 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-08-29
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Euroarts
DVD Reviews of Haydn: Cello Concertos featuring Rostropovich
DVD Review: Rostropovich in His Prime
Summary: 5 Stars
This DVD contains the two Haydn Cello Concerti with Mstislav Rostropovich playing cello and conducting the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, plus one of Haydn's piano concertos (No. 11 in D Major, Hob.XVIII:11) with pianist Homero Francesch and the ASMF conducted by Neville Marriner. The two cello concertos were recorded in 1975 at Henry Wood Hall, London; the piano concert was recorded in 1982 at the Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth. Frankly, the main reason to get this DVD is to see and hear Rostropovich play these two concerti while very much in his prime. One notes that he does little more conducting that starting the movements off and then more or less handing off the direction to concertmaster Iona Brown who was, of course, a fine conductor in her own right. One also notes that Rostropovich has adopted the bent end-pin designed by Paul Tortelier (I think it was). This allows the cellist to see more clearly what he's doing and also makes it easier to play in the higher positions. (I also note that at least one of the ASMF cellist is using the bent pin.) All that would not matter if these weren't good performances, but they are in fact more than that. Rostropovich of course plays with more or less Romantic tone and vibrato although he does not do any of the swooning that some players of that era were still doing. These are pretty straightforward performances at moderate tempi. Of course there was no one to match Rostropovich at this point in his career and it is utterly delightful to hear (and watch) him. He does not take the virtuoso route with these works, but turns in solid performance marked by absolutely stunning intonation and, during the slow movements particularly, a singing tone rarely matched by any other cellist before or since. I do not know whose cadenzas he used, but they sound fairly modern to my ear, not that they abandon Haydn's sound-world by much. They are replete with double stops and tricky arpeggiated passages and are quite effective.
These concerti have interesting histories in that the first, in C Major, was thought not to be by Haydn until his dated and signed manuscript was found in the basement of an Austrian library. And the D major concerto was thought lost until found in the early 1960s. A much later work -- twenty years separate the two concerti -- it is a more harmonically and formally complicated work that has been taken up by all concertizing cellists, although the first concerto remains the more popular, I think.
The piano concerto recorded here is not one of Haydn's more inspired works -- indeed Haydn's piano concertos as a group are generally inferior to his works in other genres -- but it is given an elegant performance here by the Uruguayan pianist Homero Francesch. In all three works the ASMF are simply sterling with crisp attacks, subtly responsive phrasing and some lovely hushed pianissimi heard only from the best ensembles.
This DVD is for any lover of these works and especially for admirers of the playing of Mstislav Rostropvich.
Sound is pretty good for its time. Although the DVD offers the options of LPCM stereo, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 it was, of course, recorded in stereo only and there is likely little difference between these formats. (I played it only in plain stereo.) Videography is clean and unobtrusive.
Scott Morrison
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