Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDA67948

Pilinszky János: Gérard de Nerval

composer
1984; solo cello; from the series Signs, Games and Messages

Steven Isserlis (cello)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: December 2011
Concert Hall, Wyastone Estate, Monmouth, United Kingdom
Produced by John Fraser
Engineered by Ben Connellan
Release date: October 2012
Total duration: 1 minutes 35 seconds

Cover artwork: Le Palais da Mula (1908). Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Private Collection / Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘This blissfully unhackneyed and brilliantly executed recital … the performance's sheer panache is as persuasive as the tonal refinement preceding it, and the recording throughout gives the players all the space and atmosphere they need to characterise the varied moods and textures of an unusually rewarding programme’ (Gramophone)

‘Something very special. Their choice of repertory here—devised as an extended upbeat to Adès's Lieux retrouvés at the end of the programme—is unusual, memorable, and wonderfully performed from start to finish’ (BBC Music Magazine)

Lieux retrouvés is some of the most enjoyable and readily accessible contemporary music you're likely to encounter … this music, like everything else on this recording, is brilliantly played by Isserlis and Adès. Unreservedly recommended’ (International Record Review)

‘Isserlis's brilliant recital disc with Adès makes an admirably integrated whole. The Proustianly titled Lieux retrouvés, which Adès wrote for the cellist and himself, is, in effect, a four-movement sonata whose figuration and part-writing knock at the door of the complex to seek the visionary. Isserlis is furiously lyrical and concentrated here, but no less so in the other works, which offer aptly Romantic-modern context for Adès's inspiration. Fauré's beautiful Second Sonata is dispatched not merely with superb elan, but with almost desperate intensity from both players’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Isserlis plays with almost tangible intensity and soul, while Adès finds charm and natural expression at every turn—a true musical dialogue’ (Financial Times)

‘There is an engaging emotional path running through, from the nostalgic resignation of late Liszt—three stark but lyrical transcriptions—to Adès' stirring title piece … the two men secure what Adès describes as the inner illumination and rapture of Fauré's 1921 Second Sonata, investing its Finale with the sinew and thrust of a younger Ravel’ (The New Zealand Herald)
Gérard de Nerval was a nineteenth-century French poet whose tragic life ended in suicide. Pilinszky’s poem of that name (rather literally translated here) is bleak:

A riverside which is not a riverside.
A memory which has never been a sunrise,
then something of a moat
and a fiery pin in the head.

Kurtág’s response, while full of inner pain, is also tender, its chromatic falling sighs evoking a memory of the Sarabande of Bach’s fifth Suite. Only the final pizzicato chord evokes the ‘fiery pin in the head’.

from notes by Steven Isserlis © 2012

Gérard de Nerval fut un poète français du XIXe siècle dont l’existence tragique se conclut par un suicide. Le poème éponyme écrit par Pilinszki (et plus ou moins littéralement traduit ici) est maussade:

Une rive qui n’est pas une rive.
Un souvenir qui n’a jamais été un lever de soleil,
puis comme un fossé
et une ardente épingle dans la tête.

Quoique toute de douleur intime, l’œuvre de Kurtág est tendre, avec ses soupirs chromatiques descendants qui rappellent la Sarabande de la Suite nº 5 de Bach. Seul l’ultime accord en pizzicato évoque l’«ardente épingle dans la tête».

extrait des notes rédigées par Steven Isserlis © 2012
Français: Hypérion

Gérard de Nerval war ein französischer Dichter des 19. Jahrhunderts, dessen tragisches Leben mit Suizid endete. Pilinszkys Gedicht mit dem Titel „Gérard Nerval“ (in einer recht wörtlichen Übersetzung) ist trostlos:

Ein Flussufer, das kein Flussufer ist.
Eine Erinnerung, die nie ein Sonnenaufgang war,
dann etwas wie ein Graben
und eine feurige Nadel im Kopf.

Kurtágs Reaktion ist zwar voller innerer Qual, jedoch gleichzeitig auch sanft, wobei die chromatischen abfallenden Seufzer an die Sarabande aus Bachs fünfter Suite erinnern. Erst der letzte Pizzicato-Akkord stellt die „feurige Nadel im Kopf“ dar.

aus dem Begleittext von Steven Isserlis © 2012
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...