The Chopin Album Sol Gabetta

• Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849): Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor, Op. 65
• 1 I. Allegro moderato 16:37
• 2 II. Scherzo. Allegro con brio 05:30
• 3 III. Largo 04:29
• 4 IV. Finale. Allegro 06:34
• 5 Polonaise brillante, Op. 3 09:47
• 6 Grand Duo concertant in E Major 11:53
• 7 Etude, Op. 25, No. 7 in C-Sharp Minor (transcribed in E Minor) 05:16
• 8 Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 1 (Arr. for Cello and Piano) 05:19
• 9 Nocturne for Cello and Piano, Op. 14, No. 1 04:36
• Total Runtime 01:10:01

Info for The Chopin Album

On her new album, cello superstar Sol Gabetta teams up with one of the best young artists, French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. Gabetta and Chamayou have played together on many occasions and quickly became both friends and artistic partners. They collaborated on the album concept and will tour this repertoire in Europe throughout 2015. The Chopin Album contains a selection of pieces by well-loved composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) as well as music by his close friend, the composer and cellist Auguste-Joseph Franchomme (1808-1884).

The centrepiece of this album is Chopin's striking sonata for cello and piano in G minor, op. 65, written in 1846; one of the rare pieces Chopin wrote for a solo instrument other than the piano. The duration is over 30 minutes and was written for and dedicated to Chopin's close friend Franchomme. The cello sonata was the last work published during Chopin's lifetime before he died in October 1849.

The Grand Duo concertant in E major, B. 70 was written jointly by Chopin and Franchomme in 1832. Chopin had initially been contracted by his publishers to write a work for piano based on Meyerbeers opera ‘Robert le diable’. He had attended a performance and liked the work, but was disinclined to write a ‘fantasia’ on another composer's music. Franchomme persuaded him to jointly write a piece for cello and piano, using themes from the opera. Chopin delivered the general structure of the piece and wrote the piano part and Franchomme wrote the cello part. The piece was published under both their names, and was favourably reviewed by Robert Schumann.

Chopin's Polonaise brillante in C major, op. 3 for cello and piano is one of Chopin's first published compositions and was written in October 1829, dedicated to the Austrian cellist Joseph Merk. Chopin composed the famous Nocturne in F major, op. 15, no.1 for piano in 1832. The transcription for cello and piano on this album was done by Franchomme.

Auguste Franchomme was one of the best and most celebrated cellists and persons of the musical life in Paris of his time. He also worked as a composer and published around 50 works for cello, among them his Nocturne for Cello and Piano, op. 15, no.1 which Gabetta and Chamayou selected for this album. Chopin's Étude, op. 25, no.7 (1836) for piano solo is part of the famous 12 etudes op. 25 and was arranged by composer Alexander Glazunov for cello and piano.

Sol Gabetta, cello
Bertrand Chamayou, piano

Sol Gabetta
The cellist Sol Gabetta was born in Cordoba, Argentina, in 1981 as the daughter of French and Russian parents. She was only ten when she won her first competition in Argentina, and has received many more awards since then: she won the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD Competition in Munich, and has been awarded the Natalia Gutman Prize. In 2004 she created an international sensation when, as winner of the Crédit Suisse Young Artist Award, she gave her début with the Vienna Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev at the Lucerne Festival.

From 1992–94 Sol Gabetta studied with a scholarship at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid, after which she moved to Switzerland to pursue further studies with Ivan Monighetti at the Basel Academy of Music. After further years of study with David Geringas, she took her concert exam in 2006 at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin.

In the last few years, Sol Gabetta has made guest appearances with the Munich Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, SWR Stuttgart, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, the Calgary and Seoul Philharmonics, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Het Residentie Orkest, the Trondheim Soloists and the orchestras of Euskadi, Teneriffa and Sevilla. She regularly gives concerts together with the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Gabetta regularly appears at major festivals such as the Rheingau Music Festival, in Verbier, at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Bonn Beethoven Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade and the Saratoga Festival. She has also founded her own chamber music festival in Switzerland with the name "Solsberg", where she performs together with her chamber music partners, who include Henri Sigfridsson, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Baiba and Lauma Skride and Patricia Kopatchinkskaya.

Sol Gabetta records exclusively on the RCA label (Sony Music). Her début CD featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Ginastera, recorded with the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra under Ari Rasilainen, shot straight to the top of the German classical charts, and brought the coveted Echo Klassik Prize for 2007 as instrumentalist of the year. Her second CD. with Vivaldi concertos recorded together with the Italian ensemble Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca, was released in September 2007, and stayed in Germany's classical charts for over six months. 2008 saw the release of not one, but two CD's by Sol Gabetta. One featured a Shostakovich programme: the Cello concerto no.2 with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under Marc Albrecht, and the Sonata for cello & piano (with the pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa). The second CD is entitled "Cantabile" and contains opera arias and songs by Offenbach, Bizet, Tchaikovsky and others; on this album, Ms. Gabetta is accompanied by the Prague Philharmonic conducted by Charles Olivieri-Munroe. After it was released, the Shostakovich CD was awarded the coveted French music award Diapason d’Or by the clafssical music magazine Diapason and received the German Echo Klassik award 2009 as concerto recording of the year. In 2011 she received her third Echo Klassik award for her recording of the Elgar cello concerto.

A generous private grant from Hans K. Rahn enables Sol Gabetta to play one of the rare and valuable cellos built by G. B. Guadagnini; the instrument dates from 1759. She has held a teaching post at the Basel Academy of Music since October 2005.

This album contains no booklet.