www.celloclassics.com
As my grandmother once
sagely remarked, "there’s quite
a lot of composers when you think about
it, isn’t there"; and she herself
could have named at least a dozen …
The trouble is, a good
many people with far more pretensions
to culture than my grandmother ever
had, think the same way, and will go
to a concert including a cello concerto
from the classical period only if it’s
by Haydn. Even Boccherini is a bit of
an adventure for them, especially if
it really is Boccherini and not Grützmacher.
Their number would seem to include Bill
Gates and his entourage, by the way,
since the language corrector proposes
to transform Boccherini into either
Butchering or Bickering.
Back in Haydn’s own
day people thought differently, and
people went to concerts to hear something
new. From time to time a particularly
successful piece might be repeated,
but more often success would lead to
an invitation to write something else.
Composition was not seen as the gradual
creation of a limited stock of masterpieces
but as a ready supply of novelties.
People no more went to concerts to hear
the same things than present-day twelve-composer
"cultured" persons expect
to buy a newspaper and find it repeats
the same articles as the day before
(not that they’re all that different
really ...).
Obviously, if you are
only going to allow twelve composers
into your Pantheon, there’s no way Jean-Balthasar
Tricklir is going to find a place there,
but he was a welcome enough figure in
his own day. By all accounts one of
the finest cellists of his time, it
seemed natural enough that he should
tour Europe with cello sonatas and concertos
of his own in his portfolio, something
which the 20th Century did
not demand of Rostropovich or even Casals,
who actually did compose a bit - Tortelier’s
occasional compositions were tolerated
as a harmless eccentricity. And, if
you’re willing to enlarge your 12 composers
to 120 or even 1,200, if you’re prepared
to listen and enjoy and then put the
music on one side till you’ve forgotten
it enough to enjoy it again, then Tricklir
has a lot going for him.
He certainly sounds
to have been a merry old soul, and it
is perhaps in the finales that he is
at his best, particularly the folksy
one in no.4 and the syncopated theme
of no.6, either of which might become
a hit if Classic FM got hold of it.
His slow movements are songlike and
quite romantic in atmosphere – helped
here by the harpsichordist who makes
good use of his lute stop – if not exactly
profound or poignant ... but nor do
they try to be so. He manages plenty
of jolly, bustling themes in his first
movements and if his alternative solution
to development is stopping, changing
tempo and writing a new theme altogether,
at least the attention is held. In short,
cellists who have played Haydn till
they are blue in the face and want something
else that is suitable when a small classical
orchestra is on the menu, might do a
lot worse than have a look at Tricklir,
especially nos. 4 and 6. And audiences
would be very silly not to go along
and hear them. Just as, in the same
way, if you enjoy the Haydn Cello Concertos
but don’t want to hear them till you’re
sick of them – it’s not as if there
are 104 like the symphonies – you’d
do very well to get this disc.
Another reason for
getting it is that you’ll hear some
very fine cello playing from Rudin –
Tricklir himself must have been quite
a player – and some most infectiously
bouncy support from the orchestra, as
well as the right romantic sounds in
slow movements. All excellently recorded
with a well-written essay telling you
all you need to know about Tricklir.
Definitely worth exploring.
Two final points: we
are told that the recording was made
in the Mosfilm Tonstudious but, forgive
my ignorance, where are they? (Moscow?).
And secondly, the cellist you see on
the cover is not Tricklir himself (maybe
no portrait survives?) but a self-portrait
by Zoffany, details of which are given
in the booklet.
Christopher Howell
Alexander
Rudin (cello), Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra
