Album: Jean-Guihen Queyras, Mantovani, Schoeller, Amy: Cello Concertos (Harmonia Mundi)

The reputation of cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras is now such that he is able to present three concertos written for him by three diverse modern composers, here performed with different orchestras.

Amy's "Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre" opens with bold, broad solo strokes, and builds to a more animated conclusion in which Queyras's cello deftly rides a passage of marimba and percussion. Percussion also features heavily in Schoeller's "The Eyes Of The Wind", where the cello's lowing tones are punctuated in Oriental manner with brittle clave strikes, while the orchestra lurks cagily, waiting to unleash what Schoeller calls "the mysterious fury of energy itself".

Download this: "Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre", "The Eyes Of The Wind"