Soulful Recital

A very soulful recital by cellist Truls Mork and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Paavo Jarvi. The works on the disk are Schumann's Cello Concerto, Kol Nidrei by Bruch and Bloch's Schelomo. The Schumann concerto is a long elegiac monlogue for the cello with understated orchestral accompaniment responding to the inflections of the soloist and as such it fits well in recital with the two other pieces. The Bruch piece is informed by the solemn Jewish prayer Kol Nidrei which fascinated the Protestant Bruch. The form of the music similarly is coloured by Hebrew sacred music but is still steeped in a generalised romantic religious style. Bloch originally intended to set Schelomo to texts from Ecclesiastes ( Schelomo is Solomon ) as a meditation on the view that "all is vanity". He changed tack to entrust the "voice" of the preacher to the cello, backed by a big orchestra. There is a general soulful feel to the entire disk which Mork relishes and to which Jarvi provides apposite support.