Schumann - Liszt Ophélie Gaillard & Pulcinella Orchestra

• Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Cello concerto in A minor, Op.129
• 1I. Allegro - Nicht zu Schnell (48 kHz)11:20
• 2II. Adagio - Langsam (48 kHz)04:06
• 3III. Finale vivace - Sehr Lebhaft (48 kHz)07:44
• Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
• 4Première Élégie05:01
• 5Deuxième Élégie04:44
• 6Romance oubliée03:27
• 7Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth05:30
• 8La lugubre gondole08:22
• Total Runtime50:14

Info for Schumann - Liszt

After Dreams, and the Bach Cello Suites, two recordings that enjoyed both critical and public acclaim, Ophélie Gaillard turns here to Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto and the complete music for cello and piano of Franz Liszt. The result of this juxtaposition of two worlds, those of two composers of great sensitivity, is a programme captivatingly combining passion with an expression of the mysteries of life. Once again we see the eclecticism that Ophélie Gaillard has always shown. For the Schumann Concerto, this brilliant young cellist is accompanied by the National Radio Orchestra of Romania (which has played with the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Martha Argerich and Mstislav Rostropovich), under the young conductor Tiberiu Soare (a favourite of the singer Angela Gheorghiu).

Schumann, who took up the cello at one time, attains an expressive maturity in his Concerto that enables him to bring out all the warmth and sensuality of the instrument, which he presents in an orchestral setting of admirable depth. For the second part of the programme, Ophélie Gaillard is joined by the fine pianist Delphine Bardin (winner of the coveted Clara Haskil Prize). These pieces show the soberness and bold language that characterise Liszt's late works. He had tamed his virtuosity considerably by then and his harmony shows him breaking away more and more from tonality (Liszt declared to an astonished Vincent d'Indy that 'he aspired to do away with tonality'). They also immerse us in surprising environments, sometimes haunting, sometimes very bleak – a world of subtle emotions just waiting to be discovered!

Ophélie Gaillard, cello
Delphine Bardin, piano
Orchestre de la Radio Nationale Roumaine
Tiberiu Soare, conductor

Info: Track 1-3 sind in 48 kHz.

Ophélie Gaillard
… could we read in the editorial published in the Diapason magazine of June 2011, (Ophélie Gaillard was awarded the Diapason d’Or for the Suites of Bach). The English Newspapers also underlined this appreciation. In August 2011, The Strad magazine wrote that “Gaillard was at the top “ whereas in 2007 The Times already welcomed her “wizard fingering, big lyrical heart, and kaleidoscope of colors”.

This brilliant Franco-Swiss musician embodies an insatiable curiosity, a taste for risk and an immoderate appetite for the whole of the concertante cello repertoire.

Voted “Revelation: Solo Instrumentalist of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2003, she has since then appeared in recital at many prestigious venues.

Ophélie Gaillard is a child of Baroque. From a very young age, she was specialized in the early and classical cellos and soon shared the stage with Christophe Rousset, Emmanuelle Haïm and Amaryllis. Then, in 2005, she found Pulcinella, a collective of virtuosos with a passion for performance practice on period instruments. The recordings devoted to Vivaldi, Boccherini and Bach reaped excellent ratings and several awards.

In 1998, she was the winner of the Leipzig Bach Competition. Then, in 2000 she recorded Bach’s complete Cello Suites for the Ambroisie label and enjoyed a great critical acclaim. She renewed that exploit in 2011, this time for the Aparté label, and received maximum ratings from Diapason, Strad magazine, etc.

Ophélie Gaillard also performs modern and contemporary works. She has made successful recordings of Britten’s complete cello suites or Pierre Bartholomée’s Oraison.

The Romantic repertoire is not neglected: she has successfully recorded the complete cello works of Schumann, Fauré, Chopin and Brahms.

She appears as a soloist with the Orchestre de Cannes-Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, the Polish Radio Orchestra (Gabriel Chmura), the Orchestre de Picardie (Edmon Colomer), the European Camerata, the Franz Liszt Orchestra of Budapest, the New Japan Philharmonic under the baton of Werner Andreas Alpert, the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, the Romanian Radio Orchestra or else, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of James Judd.

Her solo album Dreams, made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, proved to be a great public success.

A sought-after teacher, she regularly gives master classes in Europe, Asia and in Latin and Central America. She is invited as a member of the jury at the ARD competitions and is a professor at the Haute Ecole de Musique of Geneva (HEM) since 2014.

She is regularly heard on radio (France Musique, France Culture, France Inter, Radio Classique, Espace 2, BBC Radio 3) and often appears on television (France 2, Mezzo, Arte).

In December 2015, her double-CD album Alvorada won over a vast audience and was named a ‘Star Recording’ by The Strad magazine. This programme, blending ‘highbrow’ and popular Spanish and South-American music went on tour in 2016 through France, Italy (MiTo festival), and Mexico (Cervantino Festival), in particular with the Brazilian singer Toquinho.

After the international success of her first album (Diapason d’Or in 2014, special recognition from the Strad magazine, concerts in France and Germany…), a second recording of CPE Bach for the Aparté Label will be released in 2016 with the Pulcinella Orchestra and incensed by the press (Diapason d’Or, Choc de la Musique Classica, ffff Télérama, Gramophone …).

She was invited to play for the prestigious concert series given at the honour court of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco. She subsequently recorded her next disc Exils (expected release in Spring 2017) around the concertos of Korngold and Bloch with the Philharmonic orchestra of Monte Carlo and supervised by James Judd.

Ophélie Gaillard plays a cello by Francesco Goffriller (1737), generously loaned to her by CIC, and also a Flemish violoncello piccolo (anonymous).

This album contains no booklet.