Offenbach & Gulda: Cello Concertos
Raphaël Merlin, Edgar Moreau, Les Forces Majeures
Edgar Moreau pairs two thrilling cello concertos, and though they were written 130 years apart, each is as riotously entertaining as the other. Moreau’s astounding technique dispatches Offenbach’s flashy, operatic music from 1847 complete with an eccentric final-movement duet for cello and side drum. Friedrich Gulda was famous as a brilliant Mozart pianist and a jazz musician. His Concerto for Cello, Wind Orchestra and Band leaps from the jazz club to the Viennese concert hall via courtly minuets and German oompah bands. It works brilliantly. And the irrepressible Moreau and Les Forces Majeures are the ideal guides to Gulda’s dizzying sonic kaleidoscope.