Honegger: Cello Concerto / Cello Sonata / Cello Sonatina / Sonatina for Violin and Cello

Featuring

Tuomas Ollila-Hannikainen
Christian Poltéra
Kathryn Stott
Christian Tetzlaff
Malmö SymfoniOrkester
Arthur Honegger

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Composer Biography

Honegger's first composition teacher, Friedrich Hegar, was a violinist and composer who had played for Wagner and became a close friend of Johannes Brahms.

Composer Biography

Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) was a Parisian who retained his original Swiss nationality, a citizen of a landlocked country who loved the open sea, and a husband of thirty years who almost never lived with his wife.

Compositional Technique

Honegger's Cello Concerto of 1929, one of only three concertos in his entire output, features a cyclical treatment of material, with the opening music returning just before the end of the last movement.

Performer Biography

Cellist Christian Poltéra was named a European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) 'Rising Star' during the 2006-07 season and received a Borletti-Buitoni Award in 2004.

Composition History

The Sonatina for Clarinet (or cello), featured on this album, was originally conceived as 'Three Pieces' and written for the Swiss patron of the arts Werner Reinhart, an amateur clarinettist who also patronized Stravinsky.

Critical Reception

The German conductor Hermann Scherchen described Honegger's Cello Concerto as 'one of the few carefree pieces that have come out of the New Music - sophisticated, discreet, humorous, but when all is said and done also deeply serious'.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Arthur Honegger, a member of the nonconformist group Les Six, distinguished himself by rejecting their anti-Impressionism and pro-Satie stance, instead stressing allegiance to traditional genres and the importance of 'musical architecture,' with Bach as his ideal.