Broadcast #761 — a prime number, by the way — marks the return of one of our prime anti-warhorses from the earliest years of classics without walls, the Wellesz cello sonata. This magnificent piece alone — which in the course of 13 minutes encompasses the depth of spiritual crisis and its resolution in ecstatic dance — should be enough to prove that the obscurity of Wellesz has been a scandal of the first order. Fortunately, after several decades during which this out-of-print LP by Robert Sylvester was the only recording of his music available, a flood of releases in recent years have made much more of his work accessible. Many thanks to Bill & Judy Cartmel of Memories Inc. in Lewiston, Maine, for ending a 15-year search for this LP.
- Somei Satoh: Birds in warped time II
- Margaret Leng Tan pf / Frank Almond vn (New Albion NA008)
- Egon Wellesz: Sonata for violoncello solo, op. 31 (1920)
- Robert Sylvester vc (Desto DC-7169)
- Maurice Delage: Quatre poèmes hindous / Four Hindu poems (1912-13)
- Dawn Upshaw S / Lynn Chang, Nai-Yuan Hu vn / Nardo Poy va / Bruce Coppock vc / Marcia Butler ob / Fenwick Smith, Laura Gilbert fl / Thomas Hill, Mitchell Weiss cl / Barbara Allen hp (Elektra Nonesuch 9 79262-2)
- Sofia Gubaidulina: Rejoice! sonata: “Your joy no one will take away from you” and “Rejoice with joy”
- Gidon Kremer vn / Yo-Yo Ma vc (CBS MK44924)