A Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - January 2023

"A perfect control of rhythm allows for beautifully expressive playing"

Cellist Johannes Moser and pianist Andrei Korobeinikov present Bohuslav Martinů’s complete cello sonatas. These works belong to the most significant twentieth-century repertoire for cello and piano. Reflecting Martinů’s troubled existence, defined by wartime, emigration, longing for the homeland, yet also full of hope and life-affirming energy, the music seems entirely topical in our own troubled times.

After their award-winning recording of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff from 2016, Moser and Korobeinikov demonstrate their congeniality once more, fully realizing the extreme interdependence of cello and piano in these works. Johannes Moser has a vast Pentatone discography, consisting of releases with cello concertos of Dvorak and Lalo (2015), Elgar and Tchaikovsky (2017), Lutoslawski and Dutilleux (2018), works for cello and piano by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn (2019) and Francesco Velázquez’s cello concerto (2022). His recording of works for cello and piano by Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev (2016), performed together with Andrei Korobeinikov, was awarded with a diapason d’or and ECHO Klassik 2017.

REVIEW:

Johannes Moser and Andrei Korobeinikov capture the rapidly shifting emotions in all three works while maintaining an unflappable rhythmic poise – no mean feat in such complexly syncopated music. The result are performances in which clarity and precision seem to take on an expressive power of their own.

Pentatone’s engineers do both players proud – balance between the two instruments is close to perfect – and the recording is significantly enhanced by the perceptive booklet note. Simply put, this is the most satisfying account of Martinů’s cello sonatas on record.

-- Gramophone