From the vaults of Musical Heritage Society: American cello virtuoso Carter Brey enjoyed a prolific solo career from his 1981 debut through 1996, when he was appointed principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic. His recording of the cello sonatas of Chopin and Rachmaninoff accompanied by his longtime artistic collaborator Barbara Weintraub has been one of the most requested reissue titles the MHS catalogue, and is heard here in a new high-resolution transfer from the label's archival sources.
Chopin and Rachmaninoff? On first consideration these two composers seem like curious choices to share a cello concert— or any other kind. Chopin, the tubercular Pole, with his subtle, crepuscular style and the pastel colors on his musical palette, was always reigned in, laid back, yearning, wistful, contemplative: private. Think then of Rachmaninoff, with those deep, sad, dark eyes, the extravagant Russian emotionalism, the tempests that rage in his turbulent music, the sobs and unabashed tears that stain its somber pages.
On second thought, however, the wisdom of the choice begins to be apparent. Both men were, after all, part of the great 19th century romantic tradition; both were keyboard virtuosi; both were melancholics; each was, in his own way, able to sway our senses and set our pulses pounding with the songful melodies, the ravishing harmonies, the shifting moods that permeate his scores. It has been said of Chopin that he could really write only for the piano, that his scoring for other instruments-espe cially for full orchestra, as in his two piano concerti-was sketchy and perfunctory. Yet of the five works for chamber players that the Polish master composed, three involved the cello: the Introduction and Polonaise (op. 3), the Piano Trio in G minor (op. 8), and the Cello Sonata (op. 65). What prompted the creation of two of these pieces, in fact, were his friendships with cello players of the period. The young Chopin (20 years old at the time) wrote the first of the above mentioned pieces, also known as the Polonaise brilliante, for Prince Anton Radziwill, who happened to be something of an amateur cellist. He did have the presence of mind, however, to dedicate it to a Viennese virtuoso of the instrument, Josef Merk, who also wrote a number of cello pieces on his own. Then, in 1845, when he was in his mid-30s, Chopin set down his ambitious four- movemnent Cello Sonata for another famous cellist, the
Frenchman Auguste-Joseph Franchomme, a rather close friend who also wrote cello works and held chamber music evenings in Paris. In that Sonata, heard on this recording, how uncannily Chopin proves his own mastery of the mellowest of all musical instruments in terms of its possibilities, even as he makes the piano, at whose keyboard he always felt most at home, a true collaborator in a superbly crafted score.
Rachmaninoff, encouraged early on by Tchaikovsky, with whose music his own is linked in moodiness as well as melodic invention, was, like Chopin before him, a spectacular pianist as well as a great composer for the keyboard; he was 19 when he wrote his perennially popular Prelude in C-sharp minor. He also was a brilliant orchestrator, far outstripping his Polish predecessor in his mastery of the art of orchestration. But, in addition to his large-scale symphonies, concerti, and tone poems, he too wrote a number of distinguished chamber pieces. Two of these involve the cello: the Trio élégiaque of 1893, actually written in memory of his mentor Tchaikovsky; and the Cello Sonata of 1901 heard here, written while he was still in his 20s. The Russian master, who left his native land in 1917 never to return, and who became an American citizen the year before he died, never did abandon the Russian tradition on which he was nurtured; to the end his music, like Tchaikovsky’s, spoke
always in a deep Slavic accent, heart on sleeve. The Sonata, like so much of the rest, speaks moodily and in a minor key through the melodies that poured from Rachmaninoff’s pen. As in the Chopin work, the role of the piano is prominent. It also soon becomes clear to the listener that Rachmaninoff also had a remarkable grasp of the cello’s capabilities.
Paul Kresh
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The American cellist Carter Brey has risen to the top of today’s musical world by a series of triumphant performances. In 1981, he won a top prize at the first Rostropovich International Cello Competition in Paris. In 1982, Mr. Brey won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. This brought him his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series at the 92nd Street Y and his sensational Washington, DC debut in the Young Concert Artists Series at the Kennedy Center, to a standing ovation led by Maestro Rostropovich himself.
Following his first solo US tours under the Young Concert Artists’ aegis, Mr. Brey received three major honors: The Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, which presented Mr. Brey in recital at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and brought engagements with major US orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Houston Symphony; the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize; and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 1983, a major grant to Young Concert Artists, Inc. endowed the Anne and George Popkin Cello Chair, which sponsors all management services for a cellist on the YCA roster. The first cellist to hold this Chair was Carter Brey.
Mr. Brey has been heard as soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Pinchas Zukerman, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, and the New Mexico Symphony. He has performed chamber music at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Library of Congress Summer Festival, with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Spoleto Festivals in Charleston, South Carolina, Spoleto, Italy, and Australia.
Mr. Brey won the top prize of the International Munich Competition for Duos in 1978 with pianist Barbara Weintraub. Mr. Brey was a Wardwell Fellow in Chamber Music and a Haupt Scholar at Yale University. He performed at the first American Cello Congress at the University of Maryland in 1982. Carter Brey was a student of Laurence Lesser and Stephen Kates at the Peabody Conservatory and studied with Aldo Parisot at Yale University.
Barbara Weintraub, pianist, was a top prizewinner in the prestigious Munich Competition and the Chopin Piano Competition. Miss Weintraub has appeared from coast to coast in recital and as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She has performed at such festivals as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Spoleto Festival, the Tanglewood Festival, and the Library of Congress Summer Festival, where the Washington Post called her performances “dazzlingly dynamic.” A graduate of the Peabody Institute and
Yale University, she has studied with Leon Fleisher, Konrad Wolff. And Dorothy Taubman. A founding member of the Rogeri Trio and the American Chamber Players, she has toured the United States and has been featured on European radio and television. In addition to this performance on the Musical Heritage label, Miss Weintraub can be heard on Orion and Leonarda Records.
Young Concert Artists is a non-profit organization, founded in 1961 by Susan Wadsworth, dedicated to discovering and developing the careers of extraordinary young musicians. The Mortimer Levitt Library of Young Concert Artists is a collection of recording debuts sponsored through this organization, including violinist Ani Kavafian (MHS 3760M), pianist Stephanie Brown (MHS 4200M), pianist Daniel Adni (MHS 4512X), flutist Marya Martin (MHS 4666K), trumpeter Stephen Burns (MHS 71032), violinist Daniel Phillips (MHS 7206A), the Mendelssohn String Quartet (MHS 72 14F), and violinist Sung-Ju Lee (MHS 7400L).
