C H R CORINNE MORRIS SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA cello works by Haydn • Couperin • Monn Y S A L I S CORINNE MORRIS SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA LEADER: STEPHANIE GONLEY François Couperin (arr. Bazelaire) Recorded at Pièces en Concert Usher Hall 1. Prélude ..................................................................................................2:12 Edinburgh, UK 2. Siciliène ................................................................................................2:24 26–27 July 2016 and 3. La Tromba .........................................................................................1:26 22 January 2017 4. Plainte ....................................................................................................5:43 5. Air de diable ....................................................................................1:43 Produced and recorded by Philip Hobbs Georg Matthias Monn Cello Concerto in G minor Assistant engineering by 6. Allegro ...................................................................................................6:37 Robert Cammidge 7. Adagio ..................................................................................................7:08 8. Allegro non tanto ....................................................................4:54 Post-production by Julia Thomas Joseph Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb: 1* Design by 9. Moderato ..........................................................................................10:17 Paul Harpin 10. Adagio .................................................................................................9:09 11. Allegro molto ...............................................................................6:38 Photography by *cadenzas by Corinne Morris Benjamin Ealovega Total Running Time: 58 minutes MORRIS C H R Y S A L I S CORINNE MORRIS The title of this album, Chrysalis, feels grew; my playing eventually came back apt both for me and for this music. It and was able to articulate some of the new suggests the process whereby things understandings I had been shown. There change, develop, progress their form and was also a new energy, the same kind of yet stay somehow intrinsically the same. underlying energy that propels all the works The Monn Concerto lay dormant for many on this album. I’m the same; I’m different. So years, the manuscript discovered only I feel a particular kinship to these works, and in the early twentieth century. This concerto to that evocative word, ‘chrysalis’. and Haydn’s, too, took another era, the trappings of another context, to find its An artist is nothing without an audience — moment and sing to a wider public. similarly, a musician cannot flourish without support and nurturing. I am immensely And I…? Well I changed during my enforced grateful to all who have contributed in time away due to injury. I suffered, but I helping me become who I am today, and to those who stand by me as I re-emerge on the musical scene. C H R With special thanks to: Adam Greenwood- Byrne, Rita Gregory, Susan and Peter Haisman, Annie Lynn, Anne Furneaux and William Morton, Rod Marten and Howard Shepherdson, Fanny Schulman, Y S A Scott Yarwood. © Corinne Morris, 2017 L I S MORRIS 5 CORINNE MORRIS PLAYS comfortable and understand the musical HAYDN, COUPERIN AND MONN language and stylistic requirements of each era. When you understand and Haydn’s First Cello Concerto, the C major, perform Baroque music, even if you don’t recorded here, sits Janus-like in the cellist’s do it on period instruments (which I don’t), repertoire – looking back towards the it still makes you approach later music Baroque but also forward to the ‘modern’ in a different way. So the journey on this cello concerto repertoire. It’s a milestone for recording really starts in the Baroque. The players, as Corinne Morris explained to version of the Couperin that we’ve chosen James Jolly. here has been arranged by a famous French cellist and teacher, Paul Bazelaire (1886– Corinne Morris: Haydn is the arrival point 1958), who – typically for the time – allowed on this musical journey, with Couperin – in himself certain liberties, but I do think that the Baroque style – being the start, and the Couperin pieces are interesting in these Monn occupying the short transitional transcriptions. And I grew up listening to period between both eras. So when we them played by Pierre Fournier, for whom arrive at Haydn we’re well established in they were transcribed, so there’s a personal the Classical period. Of course, there’s no preference to my choosing them. rigid wall between different styles: it doesn’t make sense to me to say that if you play in When you’re using a modern instrument a Baroque style you can’t play Classical or with a modern orchestra, albeit an even Romantic repertoire, or vice versa, or incredibly flexible and adaptable modern that if you play Romantic music you can’t go orchestra, do you have to take a decision as back into earlier styles. to how far you’re going to go towards some kind of authenticity? So where do you sit in regard to this repertoire and its stylistic demands? Absolutely. And the line is not clear at all. Where do we stop? How do we apply I don’t consider myself a ‘Baroque ornamentation? Talking about sound performer’. A musician, I believe, has to be production, how far can we go with the 6 modern tools that we have (the modern the orchestra and myself. Establishing from bow doesn’t allow us to do certain things the start that we’re not a Baroque band that the Baroque would)? And the strings meant that we couldn’t go any further we play on are going to affect the sound down that path, because that would draw in a huge way. I feel that we don’t live in in questions of pitch, strings and the rest of that era anymore and we’ve moved on. So it. So we went as far as we could with the while it’s interesting to hear sounds as they tools that we were using, knowing that you heard them back then – with their different can only go so far with the modern set-up pitch – I still think there’s a need for us before it becomes a sort of pastiche, or ‘modern players’ to interpret it in the light falls between two playing styles – the of everything that’s happened since, going modern and the Baroque. I hope we struck back in time with today’s tools and all our a good balance. understanding, as well as the knowledge of the evolution that has taken place since. You And no conductor? can’t erase that. That was one of my wishes from the start So, is that why you chose the Scottish – to have this project without a conductor – Chamber Orchestra for this recording? not because I don’t like them (!) but because I feel this music’s essence is fundamentally Yes, I like their versatility, and I was looking chamber music and, although the input of a for a chamber orchestra that was open for conductor could have been very rewarding, a project like this, and they certainly were, it would have changed the dynamics of and keen, from the start. It was interesting the group. I was keen for us to work as a to work with Stephanie Gonley, who was chamber-music group does, discussing, leading the orchestra. She’s done a fair elaborating and coming to a stylistic amount of Baroque work, and we got on agreement. Artistically it was important to very well in the sense of gauging a style for me that we do it like that because I wanted this music – we adapted the vibrato, and to keep us all using our ears, so that the coloured ornamentation in a meaningful ensemble playing remained really tight. way, and there was a good rapport between When we performed in concert we formed 7 a semi-circle and I was in the middle, which transforming things in his own writing, and was lovely – and that’s how we recorded developing sonata form. Haydn then picked too. It felt good to be surrounded by the up some of that and developed it further orchestra, and having the violins on either himself afterwards. When you put these two side gave it a stereo effect for me. That was concertos side by side you can feel a real especially noticeable in the Monn where sense of one handing on to the other. there’s a lot of dialogue between first and second violins, and I heard it in a way that I’d Do you feel a development in the way the never heard it before. composers actually used the cello as this programme moves forward in time? It’s always struck me as magical that for years the D major Concerto was ‘the’ If I think of other composers of the time Haydn concerto but when the C major – someone like Boccherini, who was a was discovered in 1961 a major work was cellist – I’m not sure that the use of the added to the cello concerto repertoire instrument changed so dramatically. Haydn overnight. And it was immediately obviously was writing for a fine player and embraced by players. he knew what he could make him do. I think that the first big change for cellists comes Yes, it’s extraordinary how the manuscript later on in the Romantic period. The use just appeared. I know a lot of people of fast passagework, typical of this earlier questioned its authenticity back then – repertoire – both Classical and Baroque – is actually when I was recording it there were quite similar. Perhaps the expressivity of the moments when I too was wondering if it thematic work is more pronounced in the were genuine Haydn, but then it’s got to be! Haydn concerto. It’s more expanded: the It’s so different to the D major work, which ideas are there with Couperin and Monn, dates from some 20 years later. But this but Haydn develops them further in terms C major Concerto is early Haydn, and that’s of the thematic expression. why I wanted it to end this journey.