TESTAMENT Booklet Note English
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TESTAMENT booklet note English SBT 1310 Maurice Gendron which formed most of the basis of the pastiche, but persuaded Pablo Casals to conduct his recording of it. Gendron published a number of The French school of cello playing had a most distinguished history in the transcriptions and was a superb deviser of cadenzas for classical twentieth century. First came Maurice Maréchal (1892-1964) and then the concertos such as those by Haydn – he also made the first critical edition trio of Pierre Fournier (1906-86), André Navarra (1911-88) and Paul of the D major Concerto. He taught in Saarbrücken (from 1954), at the Tortelier (1914-90). They have often been represented as the Three Menuhin School and at the Paris Conservatoire (1970-87), but acquired a Musketeers of the cello; and their d’Artagnan was the slightly younger reputation as a tyrannical taskmaster and did not produce any notable Maurice Gendron. For various reasons his career did not have the staying pupils. In the early 1970s he suffered a fearful car accident in which a power of theirs, and so this reissue – which takes us back to quite an shoulder was severely damaged. He fought his way back and in 1985 early stage in his progress – is particularly timely. reappeared in London for a 40th anniversary recital, but was not the same Born in Nice on 26 December 1920, Gendron was brought up in a force as before. He died on 20 August 1990 at the riverside home in poor household by his mother and grandmother, his father having Grez-sur-Loing where he and his wife, a former violinist, had lived for deserted them. He could read music at the age of three and began violin years surrounded by the paintings and drawings given to Gendron by his lessons at four with his mother, a professional player in the silent cinema; artist friends. but he did not get on with the instrument and at five changed to a Maurice Gendron admired Casals but modelled himself much more quarter-sized cello specially made for him. When he was ten his teacher on Feuermann. In his early days he had a coruscating technique and Stéphane Odero took him to hear the virtuoso cellist Emanuel although he was always his own man, there was something of Feuermann Feuermann, whose playing was a revelation to the boy. He met in the intense focus of his beautiful tone. Recordings indicate that his Feuermann and played for him a number of times but could not afford to playing was at its peak from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. For some travel for lessons to Vienna, Zurich or Feuermann’s final base, New York – reason – perhaps because in 1970 he took up conducting, a discipline he and his hero died there during the war, aged 39. Meanwhile Gendron had studied with Mengelberg, Scherchen and Désormière – it was already entered the Nice Conservatoire at 12, taking a first prize in 1934, and was declining when he had his accident. Apart from excellent versions of the soon giving local concerts. But his mother had lost her job with the Haydn D major and Saint-Saëns Concertos for a budget label, his early advent of the ‘talkies’ and he was forced to leave the Conservatoire to records were made for Decca. They began with a 1946 Dvorˇák Concerto scrub floors, clean windows and iron shirts in order to help the family on 78rpm discs, with Karl Rankl conducting, which had the ill luck to finances. In 1938, with the help of his teacher Jean Mangot, who gave come up against the Fournier version with Kubelík and the Philharmonia him a rail ticket and 1,000 francs, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, in (Testament SBT 1016), not to mention the celebrated Casals recording. Gérard Hekking’s class. He had to live in unheated lodgings and sell The recordings reissued here were more fortunate and established a newspapers to subsidise his studies. Again he carried off a first prize. At foothold in the catalogue for years. Indeed, with the Tchaikovsky/ the outbreak of war he was so poor and undernourished that he was Schumann coupling, Gendron turned the tables on Fournier, whose found unfit for army service and in due course he joined the Resistance. beautiful stereo competitor never really caught on. In those days all Unlike Fournier he refused to play in Germany. His Paris ‘début’ was cellists played the Fitzenhagen edition of the Tchaikovsky Rococo made in 1943 after the Dutch art connoisseur Jan Heyligers heard him Variations, rather than the composer’s version (Fitzenhagen, the original practising and invited him to play to ‘a few friends’. With Jean Neveu at interpreter, cut the eighth and last variation and positioned the third and the piano, he found himself among such luminaries as Francis Poulenc, fourth variations last before the coda, moving the seventh variation back Georges Auric, Jean Cocteau and Jean Françaix; and as his reputation to take their place). With that reservation, Gendron’s is a most refined, spread in bohemian society, he got to know Picasso, Braque, Chagall, elegant performance. All the great French cellists played the Schumann Sartre, Mauriac and Camus. Concerto better than their rivals from other schools; and Gendron’s Gendron’s London début was a more public affair but just as superb interpretation is heard at its best here. Everything seems in just dazzling. On 2 December 1945 he shared the platform of the Wigmore proportion and, as in the Tchaikovsky, Ansermet offers excellent support. Hall with Pierre Bernac, Poulenc and Benjamin Britten, with whom he The Schumann pieces with piano were originally coupled with Schubert’s played Debussy and Fauré. Eight days later he appeared at one of Myra Arpeggione Sonata and the LP headed all the connoisseurs’ lists of Hess’s National Gallery Concerts with Britten and Peter Pears, performing recommendations. The partnership with Françaix is here at its best, with Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata and Fauré’s Second Sonata. His reputation both artists showing wit and character, and one wishes they had made with the wider London public was sealed when he gave the first Western more records than the handful they were permitted by Decca (and later performance of Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, Op.58, with the LPO under Philips). The abiding impression left by these performances is of Walter Susskind. “That’s how I began my career,” he recalled. “No one Gendron’s seemingly easy tonal production – up to 1958, when he wanted to hear Maurice Gendron, but they all wanted to hear acquired his 1693 Stradivari, he played a 1610 Giovanni Grancino cello Prokofiev!”. He was given exclusive rights to the concerto for three years which, dare one say, suited him even better. and it made his name. For his New York début he chose a memorial Ꭿ Tully Potter, 2003 concert for Feuermann, playing the Haydn D major and Dvorˇák Concertos, and he returned to the US a number of times. His friendship with Britten and Pears continued and he appeared at the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948; but Britten’s offer to write a work for him was withdrawn, to Gendron’s chagrin, when the composer formed a close artistic relationship with Rostropovich. Even so Gendron played at the festival in 1963 when the Russian cellist was unable to appear. With Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin, in 1956 Gendron formed a famous trio which lasted for 25 years, made records and premièred works such as the trio by Alexander Goehr. Another quarter-century partnership was with the witty, elegant composer Françaix, a marvellous pianist with whom he made up a distinguished duo – an earlier duo with Dinu Lipatti was of short duration because of the Romanian pianist’s illness. On his own, Gendron was a fine player of solo Bach; and he made his own contribution to the concerto literature by rescuing the two works by Boccherini which Friedrich Grützmacher had vandalised into a ghastly pastiche. Until Gendron came on the scene, all cellists had played this mangled version. He not only rediscovered the original B minor Concerto TESTAMENT booklet note German SBT 1310 Maurice Gendron Eine andere, ebenso lange Zusammenarbeit verband ihn mit dem geistreichen, eleganten Komponisten Jean Françaix, einem Im 20. Jahrhundert gab es in Frankreich eine Unmenge hervorragender hervorragenden Pianisten; das frühere Duo mit Dinu Lipatti war wegen Cellisten. Der erste war Maurice Maréchal (1892-1964), gefolgt von der dessen angegriffener Gesundheit nur kurzlebig. Gendron war ein Trias Pierre Fournier (1906-86), André Navarra (1911-88) und Paul ausgezeichneter Interpret der Werke von J.S. Bach für Cello solo, und Tortelier (1914-90). Sie wurden häufig als die „Drei Musketiere“ des seine „Säuberung“ der beiden von Friedrich Grützmacher so grässlich Cellos bezeichnet, und ihr d’Artagnan war der etwas jüngere Maurice verschandelten Konzerte machten einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Gendron. Aus verschiedenen Gründen war seine Laufbahn weniger Literatur des Instruments. Ehe Gendron auf dem Plan erschien, hatten alle beständig als die seiner Kollegen, daher ist die vorliegende CD, die bis an Cellisten diese verhunzte Fassung gespielt. Er grub nicht nur das sein Anfangsstadium zurückreicht, besonders willkommen. eigentlich Konzert in h-Moll aus, das Grützmacher als Ausgangspunkt für Gendron kam am 26. Dezember 1920 in einen verarmten Haushalt sein Machwerk gedient hatte; er konnte auch den berühmten Pablo in Nizza zur Welt; er wurde von der Mutter und Großmutter betreut, Casals bewegen, bei seiner Aufnahme des Werks das Orchester zu leiten. denn sein Vater hatte die Familie verlassen. Als Drei-Jähriger konnte er Gendron veröffentlichte mehrere Transkriptionen und war ein Meister im schon Noten lesen und mit vier Jahren nahm er bei seiner Mutter, einer Erdenken von Kadenzen für die Konzerte der Klassik, z.