Vivaldi: Cello Concertos
Han-Na Chang / London Chamber Orchestra, Christopher Warren-Green
Series: EMI Classics
Released: 03/11/2008
Cat. No: 2347910
Format: CD
Number Of Discs: 1
Barcode: 5099923479104
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Han-Na Chang’s latest album for EMI Classics is her first account on disc of Baroque repertoire, specifically cello concertos of Antonio Vivaldi. Han-Na and her partners, the London Chamber Orchestra with Christopher Warren-Green, recorded the concertos at Abbey Road Studios in June 2008 following a performance at St. John’s Smith Square in London.
For Han-Na Chang, Vivaldi represents the “liveliness of harmony and rhythm. …It is in the colours and forms that he creates. Also, the small orchestra needed for a Vivaldi concerto – a small ensemble of strings and harpsichord that improvises during the solo – creates an intimacy between the cello and the orchestra".
The cello was in its early days as a solo instrument when Vivaldi composed his sonatas and concertos between the early 1700s and the late 1730s. None of his nearly 30 cello concertos was published in his lifetime but they survived in manuscript form. Vivaldi composed them for the Ospedale della Pietà, the orphanage where he taught the violin and directed the orchestra for many years, as well as for colleagues and patrons.
Vivaldi’s cello concertos are deep not only in register but in substance and feeling. The concertos progress in style from the rhythmically and thematically uniform musical language of the first decade of the 1700s to the more diverse idiom of the late 1730s. For example, in the earliest concerto on this recording, RV420 in A minor, believed to date from around 1708, the accompaniment in solo passages is performed by the continuo alone. In later concertos by contrast, there is more dialogue, as opposed to alternation, between solo and tutti and the upper strings share the accompaniment with the continuo. RV403 in D Major, composed in the late 1730s, shows Vivaldi eager to keep up with musical fashions, employing jagged rhythms associated with the French style and a simplification of harmony, counterpoint and texture pointing to what will be known as the Classical style.
Disc 1
1-3) Cello Concerto in C Major RV 400
4-6) Cello Concerto in a minor RV 418
7-9) Cello Concerto in c minor RV 401
10-12) Cello Concerto in a minor RV 420
13-15) Cello Concerto in D Major RV 403
16-18) Cello Concerto in b minor RV 424
19-21) Cello Concerto in Eb Major RV 408
Ha-Na Chang - Vivaldi (video)
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Press Reviews
“She plays with such conviction that you feel she too could have been the inspiration for great composers. Chang combines raw emotion with a structural grip that, in its way, is even more remarkable in one so young. – Gramophone
“The superb South Korean cellist Han-Na Chang turned in an eerily compelling performance in Bernstein's Three Meditations from Mass, an arrangement that swaps the queasy sentimentality of the original oratorio for a far more cogent piece of musical drama."
- TheTimes August 08
"[Han-Na] has an enviable power to move her audiences…she’s a natural performer whose musicianship is intense, profound and astonishingly mature." - The Strad
Customer Reviews
I’d high hopes for this concert. I’ve owned a few of HNC’s recordings, but especially love her Shostakovich and Prokofiev – music that seems to suit her gangbusters approach to the ’cello. I’d seen/heard her on YouTube performing Shkvch – her bizarre, pained/ecstatic facial expression; marvelled at her dynamism.
Earlier in the month I made sure I attended her Wigmore lunchtime solo recital, and left on an incredible high. Tonight was Vivaldi though, which I wasn’t sure was going to be quite her ‘thing’ – too fanciful and lacking the emotional depths that Chang fearlessly plunges.
Yeah, well I just couldn’t have been more wrong.
HNC just let rip into these concertos, I mean she just rides every phrase like she’s breaking in a wild horse… or something equally on the edge if you can think of a better way of putting it.
I think it’s relevant mentioning her attire, because it’s like her battle gear and in a way counts for a small but nonetheless noticeable part of the whole performance: smouldering-orange dress with criss-cross straps at the back showing her bare skin… killer shoes, again deep fiery orange with closed toes but high, high heels. She’s dressed for a ball, but it’s her own. Those shoes enable her to plant her feet just so that the ’cello rests exactly where she needs it – and from where she can let it rock from side to side as she plunges her bow arm vigorously to and fro with that rich, deep sound thrumming across the hall. HNC knows precisely what she is about.
She beams confident smiles between first violins and conductor, enjoying the music between the times she is required to play. But when she plays, it’s that wonderful expression so characteristically playing all over her face, giving the impression that some holy fire is being drawn through her, calling upon every last ounce of strength within her. Every note gets it square on the jaw, but is equally caressed into that rich plummy tone.
Perhaps all I need to say is that I’ve attended some unforgettable rock concerts with far less chutzpah than this in my time. Han-Na Chang rocks, I just hope she’ll forgive me for saying so.
Paul Davies - 24/10/2008
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