Notes and Editorial Reviews
This is the third installment in François-Frédéric Guy’s traversal of Beethoven and the first to delve into the chamber music. He is well matched in intellect, musicianship and temperament by cellist Xavier Phillips as they journey from the ridiculous (the Variations on ‘See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes’, in which Guy dispatches the virtuoso piano part with complete aplomb, to delectable effect) to the sublime (the Op 102 Sonatas).
Competition is of course thick on the ground, not least from Isserlis and Levin, an obvious choice for Record of the Month in February 2014. But Phillips and Guy deserve that accolade just as richly and their
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utterly different sound world is equally riveting.
If you want to sample the seamless responsiveness of this partnership, just listen to the opening of Op 102 No 2, with its quicksilver changes of mood, from gruff good humor to elegant yearning and then back again to a kind of tart playfulness.
There follows one of Beethoven’s great late slow movements. Phillips and Guy shape its arching, aching lines with great intensity. The close of the movement, a Beethovenian question mark, is answered by a fugal finale which in this new version has wondrous airiness and energy without trenchancy. It’s a recording that brings this sublime music into your living room in the most natural manner possible, and I can’t wait for Vol 4 of the series. Terrific!
– Gramophone
These are really fine, dynamic accounts, with virtuosity appropriately to the fore. Guy and Phillips succeed in plumbing the depths of the latter sonata's middle movement - the only sustained slow movement Beethoven wrote for this ensemble.
– BBC Music Magazine Read less
Works on This Recording
4.
Sonata for Cello and Piano no 1 in F major, Op. 5 no 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
Xavier Phillips (Cello),
François-Frédéric Guy (Piano)
Period: Classical
Written: 1796; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 01/2015
Venue: L'Arsenal, Metz, France
Length: 21 Minutes 51 Secs.
5.
Sonata for Cello and Piano no 2 in G minor, Op. 5 no 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
François-Frédéric Guy (Piano),
Xavier Phillips (Cello)
Period: Classical
Written: 1796; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 01/2015
Venue: L'Arsenal, Metz, France
Length: 25 Minutes 25 Secs.
6.
Sonata for Cello and Piano no 3 in A major, Op. 69 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
François-Frédéric Guy (Piano),
Xavier Phillips (Cello)
Period: Classical
Written: 1807-1808; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 01/2015
Venue: L'Arsenal, Metz, France
Length: 23 Minutes 29 Secs.
7.
Sonata for Cello and Piano no 4 in C major, Op. 102 no 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
Xavier Phillips (Cello),
François-Frédéric Guy (Piano)
Period: Classical
Written: 1815; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 01/2015
Venue: L'Arsenal, Metz, France
Length: 13 Minutes 13 Secs.
8.
Sonata for Cello and Piano no 5 in D major, Op. 102 no 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
François-Frédéric Guy (Piano),
Xavier Phillips (Cello)
Period: Classical
Written: 1815; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 01/2015
Venue: L'Arsenal, Metz, France
Length: 19 Minutes 10 Secs.
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