Gaïa

Before the release of Gaïa, an album of 17 new pieces about humanity’s relationship to the earth, Gautier Capuçon undertook some high-altitude research. In early 2025, he slipped on his skis, strapped a cello to his back, and travelled to a snow-covered ridge on Mont Blanc in the French Alps. The cellist is a native of the nearby Savoie region and has scaled parts of the 4,800-meter (15,700-foot) mountain before. But this time was different. Not only did he bring a film crew to capture his performance of the album’s opening track, Max Richter’s Sequence for Gaïa, but he got a close-up view of the receding Mer de Glace glacier. “Born in Savoie, I’ve always been very close to nature, to the mountains, and skiing,” he tells Apple Classical Music. “Of course, we are all conscious of climate change, and about the glaciers melting.” Still, the stark difference in snow depth since his last visit was a jolt. “I was shocked with what I saw in this five- or six-year time difference. The change was huge.” Conceiving Gaïa as a hymn to the planet’s threatened natural beauty, Capuçon commissioned 16 artists representing classical and electronic music as well as jazz, soulful pop and post-minimalism. Recording sessions took place at Schloss Elmau, a spa resort in Bavaria, blessed with a superb chamber music venue. “Some pieces are very luminous with smiles and happiness, and some are really worried,” Capuçon says, adding that the title refers to the Greek goddess of the earth. Richter, who has famously reimagined Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, here echoes Bach’s cello suites in his kinetic portrait of an Alpine trek. Bryce Dessner contributes two captivating pieces based on the landscape paintings of Edvard Munch: Towards the Forest and Towards the Light. “They’re very minimalistic, but very free,” said Capuçon. “This is not a real improvisation because I’m playing what Bryce wrote, but it really feels like an improvisation, and I think it also suits nature so well.” Along with Richter and Dessner, the “neoclassical” genre is represented with selections by Italian composers Ludovico Einaudi (the sumptuous Air) and Olivia Belli (the shimmering Tàmâr Mĕtūshelāḥ). J.B. Dunckel, one-half of the French electronic duo Air, scores his Wake for Capuçon’s cello septet Capucelli. “It was one of the first times that [Dunckel] really composed for this kind of instrument and this kind of atmosphere,” says Capuçon. “I could clearly see that his eyes were sparkling; he was like a kid when he listened the first time to what we were doing with seven cellos.” Other composers tap their inner naturalist, focusing on natural phenomena. Nico Muhly suggests the play of liquid in the rippling and surging Side Piece for cello and piano. Missy Mazzoli’s The Usual Illusion starkly evokes a mirage known as a Fata Morgana. Using the full resources of Capucelli, Armand Amar’s Boreas portrays blustery Nordic landscapes, while Quenton Blache’s Of Wind and Rain unfolds in a steady kinetic churn. In the pop-inflected works, the nature theme recedes somewhat, but these offer their own delights and comforts, be it cellist-vocalist Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s effervescent Forever Home, Jasmine Barnes’ jaunty Life in Sunshine, or Xavier Foley’s Ambition, which shows Capuçon as a credible bluesman. Least classifiable is Toro Tsa Kwa by the South African cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe, his freewheeling vocal blend of throat singing, clicks and overtones darting from one groove to another. “This was actually quite a challenge because I was playing on top of what he already recorded with his voice, and it’s a very rhythmical piece,” explains Capuçon. “So I had to dive into his world and to really match his pace, his way of speaking, of singing, which I found so inspiring and so beautiful.” The piece’s hopeful spirit connects to the album as a whole. “It’s true that most of the pieces are very much into celebrating the beauty of earth and how lucky we are,” Capuçon says. “But I think it’s also a way to get people’s attention, effectively saying, ‘Well, we are so lucky, we have to preserve it, and we have to care for it.’”