Veronika Wilhelm: |Cello con Fuoco

Only few works were written for solo violoncello. The few that are, however, are awe-inspiring. The history of the genre begins with a bang: Johann Sebastian Bach’s suites for violoncello solo and Suite no. 5 in C minor is recorded here. It was to take almost 200 years until a composer ventured out to place a work of equal rank alongside Bach’s overwhelming, monolithic achievement. This composer was the Hungarian Zoltán Kodály. In 1915 – when Max Reger, too, began to grapple with Bach’s legacy – Kodály composed his Sonata op. 8, the musical language of which imbues the solo violoncello with Hungarian esprit. Is it coincidence that another, seminal cornerstone in the repertoire for solo cello was written by a fellow Hungarian? Certainly not, for György Ligeti seems to be engaging with both the Sonata by his teacher Kodály, with its new technical challenges, as well as with Bach’s exemplary compositions in his two own, highly idiomatic movements for the sonorous, low-register instrument in his Sonata for Violoncello. When a cellist with Hungarian roots such as Veronika Wilhelm performs these milestones of the repertoire for solo cello, then one can count on a passionate interpretation which unleashes the legendary Hungarian fire which is encapsulated in these compositions and, it seems, in the warm tone-colours of the instrument itself.