Mendelssohn: Cello Sonatas & Piano Trio No. 1 Viola de Hoog, Marten Root & Mikayel Balyan

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847): Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, MWV Q 32:
• 1 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, MWV Q 32: I. Allegro assai vivace 08:50
• 2 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, MWV Q 32: II. Allegretto scherzando 05:52
• 3 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, MWV Q 32: III. Adagio 05:37
• 4 Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, MWV Q 32: IV. Molto allegro e vivace 07:35
• Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29 "Grand":
• 5 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29 "Grand": I. Molto allegro agitato 09:16
• 6 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29 "Grand": II. Andante con moto tranquillo 05:56
• 7 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29 "Grand": III. Scherzo. Leggiero e vivace 03:52
• 8 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49, MWV Q 29 "Grand": IV. Finale. Allegro assai appassionato 08:12
• Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 45, MWV Q 27:
• 9 Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 45, MWV Q 27: I. Allegro vivace 09:19
• 10 Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 45, MWV Q 27: II. Andante 05:35
• 11 Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 45, MWV Q 27: III. Allegro assai 06:46
• Total Runtime 01:16:50

Info for Mendelssohn: Cello Sonatas & Piano Trio No. 1

Acclaimed Dutch cellist Viola de Hoog presents Mendelssohn's two great cello sonatas.With a lifetime spent performing chamber repertoire on period instruments, de Hoog is an ideal, passionate exponent for this music, bringing performances that encapsulate the composer's sense of refined virtuosity.

Effervescent in their outer movements, lyrical and whimsical in their inner sections, Mendelssohn intended his cello sonatas to show complete parity between piano and cello.

De Hoog is partnered by the astonishing Armenian pianist Mikayel Balyan, who plays an 1847 piano made by Mendelssohn's favourite maker, Érard. The combination of this fine instrument with Balyan's sensitive musicianship brings a rainbow of sonorities and colours.

Mendelssohn's virtuosic piano writing has rarely been heard with such clarity on an original instrument:cascades of notes fly from Balyan's nimble fingers.The release also includes the first recording on period instruments of Mendelssohn's own arrangement of his famous Trio in D minor, Op.49, re-scored for flute, cello and piano. Viola de Hoog and Mikayel Balyan are joined by eminent Dutch flautist Marten Root. One of the staples of nineteenth-century chamber music is heard in completely new colours.

This recording follows Viola de Hoog's much-acclaimed release for Vivat of Bach's Six Cello Suites (VIVAT 107). Recorded by distinguished engineer Adriaan Verstijnen in the historic church in Bunnik,Netherlands.

Extensive presentation includes 44 page booklet with liner note (in four languages) by Mendelssohn expert Professor R Larry Todd, together with five pages of session photos.

Viola de Hoog, cello
Marten Root, flute
Mikayel Balyan, piano

Viola de Hoog
is a versatile musician whose distinguished international career has predominantly been focused on historically-informed performance. For twenty of those years she also travelled the world as the cellist in the renowned Dutch Schönberg Quartet.

After completing her studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Anner Bijlsma, she concentrated on performing chamber music, playing both modern and baroque cellos. In 1986 she was a finalist at the First International Concours for baroque cello in Paris.

For many years Viola de Hoog was principal cello with Anima Eterna, a position she has also held with Tafelmusik Toronto, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, English Baroque Soloists, the Baroque Orchestra of the Netherlands Bach Society and Concerto Köln: she currently is principal cello with the Kölner Akademie, Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht and The King’s Consort.

The repertoire of her chamber music ensembles, Schönberg Quartet and Ensemble Schönbrunn (www.chambermusic.nl), spans from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries and has generated, between the two ensembles, an impressive discography. Ensemble Schönbrunn has released fifteen CDs, of which worthy of particular mention, alongside works by Bach, Haydn and Mozart, is the series Out of the Shadow of the Masters on the Globe label, with rediscovered compositions of Beethoven’s contemporaries such as Friedrich Hartmann Graf, Anton Reicha, Ferdinand Ries and Johann Martin Nisle. The Schönberg Quartet recorded thirty-five CDs, including the complete works for strings of Schönberg, Berg, Webern and Zemlinsky (Chandos). The friends of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles awarded the quartet its Honorary Life Membership, an honour that had only previously been accorded to artists such as Felix Galimir, Eugene Lehner and Pierre Boulez. In 2009 – the Schönberg Quartet’s final year – Viola de Hoog founded the Narratio Quartet for the performance of Beethoven’s string quartets on period instruments. Its début concerts, featuring the five late quartets of Beethoven at the Early Music Festival in Utrecht, were a resounding success.

Viola de Hoog has performed Bach’s six cello suites widely, including in Japan, Amsterdam and Paris. She teaches baroque cello and chamber music at the conservatories of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Bremen, where she was recently distinguished with the position of honorary professor.

Viola de Hoog plays a highly prized cello made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Milano, c.1750, loaned from the collection of the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.

Booklet for Mendelssohn: Cello Sonatas & Piano Trio No. 1