This 2024
Sony Classical
release grew out of a concert cellist
Raphaela Gromes
gave in Kyiv, Ukraine, in an expression of solidarity with that beleaguered country. The effect of the concert was electric, and
Gromes
and conductor
Volodymyr Sirenko
, leading the
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
, wanted to duplicate it for a recording.
could not bring her main cello to Ukraine because it was deemed uninsurable in a war zone, so the album was recorded in Poland, but the concert's passionate quality comes through.
opens with
Valentin Silvestrov
's
Prayer for the Ukraine
, written in 2014 but more relevant than ever, and closes with rousing nationalist Ukrainian pieces by
Hanna Havrylets
,
Yuri Shevchenko
, and
Stepan Charnetskyi
. Most notable, though, might be the reading of the
Dvo¿ák
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
. There would seem to be absolutely no need in the marketplace for a new recording of this well-worn piece, but
' performance is brilliant and passionate. It may be hard to distinguish how much of the effect is due to
' personal decisions and how much to the overtones it takes on in this context, but the concerto here seems a rousing affirmation of individualist values, helped along by the way
Sony
engineers keep the orchestra just slightly in the background. The
Cello Concerto
is not one of
's more overtly nationalist works, but
does nothing less than find that strand in the psychological substrate of the piece. An exciting program that would have made perfect sense to a 19th century audience that often heard classical music as an expression of national ambitions. ~ James Manheim