THE BACKGROUND

DELOS is releasing an album titled CELLO (DE 3588) that features the highly esteemed American cellist, composer, and visual artist Nina Kotova in an hour-long program of unaccompanied music for violoncello from several centuries, authored by Marais, Hindemith, Schnittke, J.S. Bach, Handel, and the rarely performed Catalan master Gaspar Cassadó.

THE MUSIC

Marin Marais (1656–1728) Couplets des Folies d’Espagne from Suite in D Minor for Viola da Gamba

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 25 No. 3

Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) Klingende Buchstaben (Sounding Letters)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Suite No. 3 in C Major

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Passacaglia from Suite No. 7 in G Minor

Gaspar Cassadó (1897–1966) Suite per Violoncello Solo

THE PERFORMANCE and RECORDING

Masterfully, Nina Kotova navigates the intricacies of Marin Marais’s Couplets des Folies d’Espagne, originally conceived for the 17^th century viola da gamba, arranged for cello by the artist and Christian Döbereiner. Next, she journeys to the eighteenth century for a pair of noble performances: one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 3 in C Major for Solo Cello, the other of the iconic Passacaglia from the Suite No. 7 in G Minor of George Frideric Handel in an arrangement by Zinoviy Dynov.

The twentieth century occupies the remaining tracks in the recording with music by the soberly sparse German theorist and composer Paul Hindemith and the much-neglected Russian neo-Romanticist Alfred Schnittke. The closing three tracks are dedicated to Gaspar Cassadó, a great cellist whose much neglected music is given life by Nina Kotova in a brilliant reading.

Recorded in October 2021 at the Museo del Tulle, in Panicale, Italy, and produced and engineered by Tom Lazarus of classicsound.com, the DELOS cd bears an elegant design by Mjriam Bon and Lonnie Kunke.

Rafael de Acha © 2023