OUT NOW | Cellist Edgar Moreau's New Album, "Weinberg & Dutilleux: Cello Concertos"

Released on Erato Records, the new album features Weinberg’s Concerto in C minor and Henri Dutilleux’s 'Tout un monde lointain'

 

Recorded with WDR Sinfonieorchester and conductor Andris Poga, VC Artist and Cellist Edgar Moreau has released a new album, "Weinberg & Dutilleux: Cello Concertos." The album, released on Erato Records, consists of two concertante works from the mid-20th century: Weinberg’s Concerto in C minor (1956) and Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain (1970).

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.

Weinberg’s 4 movement work was the only concerto he wrote for cello, with a diverse array of compositions for different instrumental settings. He often drew influence from Shostakovich, whom he was mentored by. Weinberg’s Cello Concerto was reshaped from a shorter work that he abandoned during Stalin’s campaign. The composer returned to the manuscript in 1957, four years after the Soviet dictator’s death, and expanded each of its movements. Both pensive and optimistic, the work presents a paradox similar to that of Weinberg's life.

Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain was composed between 1967 and 1970. The title was inspired by 19th-century French author Charles Baudelaire’s revolutionary collection of poems, Les fleurs du mal. The work evokes a distant world, with 5 movements that take the listener to new worlds while still creating a cohesive whole with the first theme returning at the end of the entire work.

Both cello concertos were premiered by and written for cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who advocated for the works within the cello repertoire.

"This CD is about very special and very unusual repertoire," Edgar Moreau told The Violin Channel. "That’s also my mission, to be able to represent pieces that are not so famous or often recorded. We recorded this wit the WDR Sinfonieorchester and conductor Andris Poga.

"We really focused on being respectful of the composers. Weinberg and his Jewish Polish identity with a lot of folklore in his music and Dutilleux, so French but also very poetic and abstract.

"I hope that some of the listeners will discover those wonderful pieces. In each CD I record there is this reflection about the sound of the cello. That’s one of my motto. Each time I play, each time I record I try to focus on my sound and how I produce the sound with the right hand and I hope that the listeners can feel that."

 

Edgar Moreau was a prizewinner at the 2009 Rostropovich Competition, 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition, and winner of the 2014 Young Concert Artist Award. Born in 1994, Edgar began playing the cello at the age of four. He took up his studies with Philippe Muller at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and later continued at the Kronberg Academy under the guidance of Frans Helmerson.

An Erato exclusive artist, Edgar Moreau released his debut album Play in 2014 with pianist Pierre-Yves Hodique; Giovincello with Il Pomo d’Oro and Riccardo Minasi (ECHO Classic Award, 2016); an album of Debussy’s sonatas and trios with David Kadouch; Gulda and Offenbach concertos with Les Forces Majeures and Raphaël Merlin; a Moreau family album featuring works of Korngold and Dvořák (A Family Affair); and Transmission, an album celebrating Jewish heritage and musical tradition through works by Bruch, Bloch, Korngold, and Ravel.

The WDR Sinfonieorchester is one of the leading orchestras in Germany. Since the 1950s, the WDR Symphony Orchestra has been making music history with important premieres and is one of the most important commissioners of contemporary compositions.

Conductor Andris Poga is the Chief Conductor of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. Andris was the First Prize winner of the 2010 Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition, which brought him into the international scene. He was an assistant to Paavo Järvi at the Orchestre de Paris from 2011 to 2014, and from 2012 to 2014 he served as an assistant conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.