Arnold Bax:
Rhapsodic Ballad

György Ligeti:
Sonata for Solo Cello

Luigi Dallapiccola:
Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio

Gaspar Cassado:
Suite for Solo Cello

The present album features four works which have come to the forefront of repertoire for solo cello from the modern era. Arnold Bax’s Rhapsodic Ballad is his only solo piece for this instrument. It is dramtic, inventive and full of atmosphere. Likely the most often performed of his earlier works, Ligeti’s Sonata for Solo Cello has for over a decade been used as a test piece for the Rostropovich Competition in Paris. Dallapiccola’s composition was written for the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó. It is a substantial, powerful work, and an early serial composition of the composer, full of colourful effects and humour.

Rohan de Saram gave the UK premiere of Arnold Bax’s Rhapsodic Ballade in 1967 and the first public performance of György Ligeti’s Sonata for Solo Cello in 1979. From the age of twelve, Gaspar Cassadó was de Saram’s main cello teacher. de Saram met Luigi Dallapiccola several times when he came to Cassadó’s home in Florence specifically to work on Ciaccona, Intermezzo and Adagio.

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Recorded in Monkswood Studios, Waltham Abbey, Essex, 28-29 April 2015. Released in celebration of Rohan de Saram's 80th birthday.