Martinů: Cello Sonatas

Boldrini, David, Lazeri, Riviera

95687

Bohuslav Jan Martinů (1890-1959) was one of the most remarkable, successful and prolific Czech composers of the 20th century, composing in all existing genres and forms. He was a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and briefly studied under Czech composer and violinist Josef Suk. After leaving Czechoslovakia in 1923 for Paris, Martinů deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. During the 1920s, he experimented with modern French stylistic developments, also adopting jazz idioms. In the early 1930s, he found his most personal compositional style: neoclassicism, infusing it with Czech folk elements, using Bohemian and Moravian folk melodies throughout his oeuvre.

This new recording presents the three Cello Sonatas, spanning the period from 1939 to 1952, music brimming with ideas and emotions, both grim and dark (reflecting the horrors of WWO II) and lyrical and joyous, always betraying the cultural background of the composer.

Albanian cellist Riviera Lazeri studied at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatoire in Florence with Andrea Nannoni, having also attended masterclasses with Franco Maggio Ormezowsky, Mstislav Rostropovich and Lynn Harrell. David Boldrini is a musician equally at home in the roles of pianist, conductor, composer and organist.

CD

2.07.2021

5028421956879