Kodaly - Solo Cello Sonata

I remembered buying a CD last year with a mixed program of solo cello works, played by Tatiana Vassilieva (Accord 476 7191). One of them is the Kodaly Sonata, op. 8. A good opportunity to listen to it in the wake of my survey of orchestral works as I didn't know the music nor had ever really heard about the soloist.

I knew its reputation as an ineluctable monument in the solo cello literature but never really sat down to listen to it.  I'm happy to acknowledge that the sonata is an impressive work. It's likely the best thing I have heard by Kodaly up to this point. Although it's a relatively early work, dating from 1915,  what strikes is the towering maturity and confidence that speaks from it. It's a long work, over half an hour long, that meshes audacious bravura and dazzling virtuosity with a sober, cohesive musical argument. It has a certain abstract quality in its limited tonal and textural bandwith, the terseness of the musical material and the long, pondering improvisatory stretches. But this is nicely counterbalanced by a mellifluous harmonic language, stretches of infectuous declamatory or peasant rhythms and stunning instrumental pyrotechnics.

Vassilieva plays it very convincingly, it seems to me, with a solid grasp of the musical structure. She modulates confidently between the different emotional registers, never putting herself too much in the spotlight.  I don't find the recording ideal (Temple du Bon Secours, Paris) as it puts the soloist in a somewhat too resonant acoustic.

I know Janos Starker has been a widely admired champion of the piece and I will certainly seek out a recording of his (there are three), either on vinyl or CD. There is a Youtube video of Vassilieva's performance of the piece, but I must say that, impressive as the video is, she sounds more restrained and convincing on CD. Also worthwhile is a video of Starker's rendering of the third movement at the occasion of a Tokyo concert