Claude Debussy:
Beau soir (arr. Kułakowski)
Sonata for Cello and Piano
Minstrels (arr. Kułakowski/Ware)
La plus que lente (arr. Kułakowski/Ware)

Erik Satie:
Gnossiennes Nos 1-3

Maurice Ravel:
Sonata No. 2 in G major (arr. Kułakowski)
Piece en forme de habanera

Francis Poulenc:
Sonata for Cello and Piano

Acclaimed young cellist Maciej Kułakowski (Lutosławski International Cello Competition 2015, First Prize; Queen Elisabeth Competition 2017, Laureate) is partnered by pianist Jonathan Ware in an all-French recital programme that mingles the familiar with the reimagined.

Elements of ‘Spanish’ style, blues and jazz, and the ironic humour of the Parisian café, encountered in sonatas by Debussy, Poulenc and Ravel (Kułakowski’s cello rendering of the latter’s second violin sonata), are echoed in a brace of shorter works that includes several further transcriptions: of three short pieces by Debussy and of Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes.

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Recorded on 8-10 December 2021 at St Mark’s Episcopal Church, Portobello, Edinburgh.