Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness; Schlomo; From Jewish Life; Bruch: Kol Nidrei (2012)

performed by Natalie Clein (cello), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov (conductor)
composed by Ernest Bloch, Max Bruch

Schelomo, by Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, and Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei, in which the cello takes the role of a Jewish cantor, were standards among the great Jewish cellists who fled Europe in the middle 20th century, and the two works were often enough paired as they are here. They're somewhat less often heard these days, and it's hard to beat the passion of someone like Mstislav Rostropovich in this music. British cellist Natalie Clein, with her rather quick, muscular reading of Schelomo, doesn't quite do it, ... Read More

Schelomo, by Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, and Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei, in which the cello takes the role of a Jewish cantor, were standards among the great Jewish cellists who fled Europe in the middle 20th century, and the two works were often enough paired as they are here. They're somewhat less often heard these days, and it's hard to beat the passion of someone like Mstislav Rostropovich in this music. British cellist Natalie Clein, with her rather quick, muscular reading of Schelomo, doesn't quite do it, although everything here is more than listenable. The main attraction of this Hyperion-label release is actually the side attractions: the lovely arrangement by Christopher Palmer of the cello-and-piano work From Jewish Life (1924), and above all the "symphonic poem with cello obbligato" Voice in the Wilderness, which dates from the late 1930s. This work, despite its biblical-sounding title, has no direct programmatic references. The title was suggested by a friend of the composer who... Read Less