Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - A mon Ami: Works for Cello and Piano (2015) [Hi-Res]

I have experienced Chopin’s music throughout my extensive piano studies and I immediately – and always – felt very emotionally involved with his music, to the extent that I can say that he has defined me as a musician and, later on, as a cellist.
Chopin said that he loved only one instrument other than the piano: the cello. I feel so blessed that he left us, as the exception to his otherwise exclusively pianistic output, three chamber works of great quality and maturity for cello and piano (which, together with the juvenile Trio and one cycle of songs, form his entire chamber music production). I feel very strongly that I can channel my playing and my personality best through them.
These works were written partly thanks to Auguste Franchomme, a well-known French concert cellist and professor at the Conservatoire Nationale de Paris. He was the most intimate of Chopin’s friends during his years in Paris. They composed together the Gran Duo Concertante; Chopin dedicated to him his Sonata in G minor, Op. 65, which they performed together, including at Chopin’s memorable last Paris concert on 18 February 1848 at Pleyel’s; and Franchomme rewrote the cello part of the Polonaise brillante, as well as transposing a huge amount of Chopin’s piano pieces for cello and piano. When we discovered Pleyel’s “double piano” of 1898, we fell in love with its full, rich sound and felt convinced it would bring us closer to Chopin’s sound-world. Although this is not a “period performance”, Chopin favoured Pleyel’s pianos, and the warmth of this unique instrument’s sound seemed an ideal choice for this repertoire.
As for Franchomme, while researching his compositions – other than transcriptions of Chopin’s works – we immediately perceived that their close relationship was musically rooted in the influence of bel canto, and the operatic treatment of their melodies. We found a variety of unedited and unperformed fantaisies, souvenirs, variations, and piéces de concert on themes of Italian, French and German operas. If on the one hand the transcriptions and elaborations of Chopin’s music testify to Franchomme’s admiration for his overly gifted friend – while perhaps losing some of their artistic value compared to the originals of the master – on the other hand, Franchomme’s own output seemed to us like a pearl in an unopened oyster (in this case, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where we could find the first editions of these otherwise out-of- print works), and we consider them to be absolutely worth publishing and recording. ~Beatriz Blanco

Tracklist:
01. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65: I. Allegro Moderato (10:47)
02. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65: II. Scherzo (5:21)
03. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65: III. Largo (3:30)
04. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65: IV. Finale (6:51)
05. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Three themes with variations, Op. 22: I. Donizetti (4:41)
06. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Three themes with variations, Op. 22: II. Beethoven (4:25)
07. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Three themes with variations, Op. 22: III. Bellini (5:44)
08. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Grand Duo from themes of Meyerbeer's 'Robert le diable' in E Major (12:59)
09. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Gran duo from a motive of Anna Bolena, Op. 23 (11:16)
10. Beatriz Blanco; Federico Bosco - Introduction and Polonesa Brillante in C major, Op. 3 (9:35)