Listen & tracks

5 works · 77:50

Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36Edvard Grieg 3 movements29:58
1. 1 Allegro agitato 10:20
2. 2 Andante molto tranquillo 6:51
3. 3 Allegro 12:47
Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34Edvard Grieg 2 movements8:48
1. 4 Herzwunden 3:41
2. 5 Letzter Frühling 5:07
Four Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 78Jean Sibelius 4 movements14:13
1. 6 Impromptu 2:15
2. 7 Romance 3:46
3. 8 Religioso 5:32
4. 9 Rigaudon 2:40
Gramata Cellam (For solo cello)Pēteris Vasks 2 movements12:16
1. 10 Fortissimo marcatissimo 5:41
2. 11 Pianissimo dolcissimo 6:35
12 Fratres Arvo Pärt 12:35

Zoe Knighton and Ian Munro have long worked together as chamber musicians. Here they mark that association with a programme of northern European music for cello and piano.

Grieg’s magnificently romantic sonata is the centrepiece. Around it sit further Grieg lyricism, Sibelius’s Four Pieces, the haunting beauty of Vasks’s Gramata Cellam, and a close with Pärt.

Described as musicians of ‘colour and flair’ (Munro) with a ‘thrilling tenor sound’ (Knighton), they bring a warm, distinctive partnership to this repertoire.

A video of Sibelius’s Romance, filmed during the recording sessions, is on YouTube:

Reviews

They bring a fine musical understanding to Grieg's cello sonata ... as well as pieces by Sibelius and Part. The CD traverses Grieg's romantic lyricism to Part's minimalism ... his Gramata Cellam is a tour de force. Knighton brings a rich and supple tone, and a lovely sense of line, while Munro's contribution is beautifully nuanced. ★★★★

— Barney Zwartz, Sydney Morning Herald

Cello and piano sing a Southern Hemisphere’s ode to the North. Grieg’s Cello Sonata in A Minor is infused with burgeoning energy and elation alike. As agitated as its Allegro agitato may be, Knighton still hints at moments of calm – a lullaby set against droplets of piano. The Andante molto tranquillo is bravely vulnerable and homely. Although it’s a minor-key work the duo leaves us with a feeling of optimism. It’s magnificently paired with the composer’s Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34. The latter opens with the slow melodic plod of the Herzwunden, before the glorious emotional strains of Letzter Frühling. Sibelius’ Four Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op. 78, offers a refreshing layer within the release – his Romance strengthening the passion before a docile Religioso, and a subtle Rigaudon to close. ★★★½

— Stephanie Eslake, Limelight

... while Grieg was undoubtedly happiest in miniature forms and lyrical moods, it is by no means to suggest that his work lacks tension and drama. And this is what Zoe Knighton and Ian Munro find in their reading of the Cello Sonata, one of Grieg’s last chamber pieces, in this charming survey of northern music for cello and piano. It’s a piece that displays Grieg’s ambivalence toward the Germanic sonata tradition. Knighton and Munro nicely capture the first movement’s initial urgency and sudden switch to soulful lyricism, where Munro picks out a gleaming line above Knighton’s undulating motifs. Sudden contrasts and moments of forthright rhetoric, rather than classical ‘development’, drive this movement, but Knighton and Munro are careful not to leave the impression of a bunch of disparate fragments. The coda of the movement is especially ‘Norwegian’ Grieg in its use of a driving short motif, and in the slow movement he returns to an explicitly nationalist tune, the march from Sigurd Jorsalfar. But it is played whimsically on the piano with quirky harmony, as if it were Grieg’s friend Grainger improvising, before being joined in passionate melancholy by the cello. I imagine there are passages where the balance is a challenge, but here it is just fine, the piano never overshadowing the cello, and the cello never sounding strained even in the high register where it spends a good deal of time. Knighton and Munro also make nice work of the substantial finale, which, like the first movement, is structured around dramatic contrasts of different material, though the whole thing is suffused with the gapped three-note motif that is a core element in Grieg’s overtly Norwegian music.

— Gordon Kerry, Music Trust e-zine (Loud Mouth)

Artists

Zoe Knighton

cello

Zoe Knighton is at the forefront of a new generation of performers intent on forging an innovative path for the enjoyment of classical music. A founding member of Flinders Quartet, she is a leading Melbourne cellist and chamber musician.

Ian Munro

piano

Ian Munro has emerged as one of Australia’s most distinguished and awarded musicians, a pianist and composer whose career has taken him to thirty countries across Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.

Edvard Grieg

composer

Edvard Grieg folds Norwegian folk song and dance into Romantic chamber and orchestral music: cello and violin sonatas of sudden lyricism and driving motifs, glowing Lyric Pieces and Elegiac Melodies, and the Peer Gynt suites that still colour how the north sounds.

Arvo Pärt

composer

Arvo Pärt writes spare, slowly unfolding music built on tintinnabuli: simple triads and unadorned lines that ring like bells. Sacred texts and contemplative chamber pieces sit at the centre of the style that made him one of the most heard living composers.

Jean Sibelius

composer

Jean Sibelius wrote music steeped in northern light, from the seven symphonies and Finlandia to intimate cello pieces, lullabies and songs that carry the same cool passion in miniature.