Emmanuelle Bertrand - Music for Cello [NEW LINK]

the single most mindblowing and pleasurable solo Cello recording I have ever heard - there are contenders but none really come close - the richness of timbres, dexterity of hand, fluidity in the handling of super technically challenging passages - breathtaking and endlessly enjoyable.

what drew me first to this was the great label - Harmonia Mundi, name of the composer Gyorgy Ligetti, and then immediately the photo of this very young and very charming (HOT) Cellist in a... leather jacket? and the setting seems to be... a pub?? after hearing this I ofcourse researched some of her other albums and, I very well may be wrong but, it seems like this is the golden recording after which she went on to make much less exciting records.

BBC Music Magazine - "Her performance, taped in the composer’s presence, is arresting and naturally authoritative. She’s excellent, too, in the fearsomely demanding Henze Serenade, one of the most rewarding yet technically baffling works in the literature, and Bertrand’s account of the George Crumb Sonata is bettered only by Frans Helmerson’s definitive BIS version.

The Ligeti Sonata, with its seemingly unplayable final Capriccio, is a virtuoso tour de force, and Bertrand succeeds magnificently in making sense of this unrelentingly elusive though masterful work. Finally, she’s no less convincing in Nicolas Bacri’s Suite No. 4, written especially for her...this is a triumph. Highly recommended." Performance FIVE STARS Sound FOUR STARS


Nicolas Bacri - Suite n°4 op.50
George Crumb - Sonate
Henri Dutilleux - Trois strophes sur le nom de SACHER
Hans Werner Henze - Sérénade
György Ligeti - Sonate

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