Elena Ballario - Braids (2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Cellist Sergio Patria and pianist Elena Ballario present Braids, an album of French music for cello and piano that represents the interwoven strands of their professional and personal partnership, as well as the intricate threads between the composers and works they have chosen, from the Romanticism of Chopin to Boëllmann’s impressionistic sonata and Debussy’s forward-looking work, written right at the end of his life.

The figure of Auguste Franchomme links Chopin and Boëllmann; this cellist was Chopin’s great friend and an inspiration for his cello writing, which represents a rare foray into repertoire in which the piano is not the main focus – although the work is entitled ‘Sonata for Piano and Cello’ in that order. Franchomme’s legacy is also palpable in the Sonate pour Piano et Violoncelle, Op. 40 by Léon Boëllmann, who dedicated the work to cellist and teacher Jules Delsart, one of Franchomme’s pupils. Boëllmann’s beautiful, virtuosic music also shows, with its remarkable, almost Wagnerian harmonic fluidity, the influence of the great French organist César Franck, who was inspired by Wagner and whose Sonata for Violin was arranged for cello by Delsart. Such is the complex and fascinating network of connections braided together in this programme. As for Debussy, the Cello Sonata is one of his last works, revealing a composer at once troubled by war and illness, and yet full of invention and imagination.

TRACKLIST

1. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65: I. Allegro moderato
2. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65: II. Scherzo - Allegro con brio
3. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65: III. Largo
4. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65: IV. Finale - Allegro
5. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in A Minor, Op. 40: I. Maestoso. Allegro con fuoco
6. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in A Minor, Op. 40: II. Andante
7. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in A Minor, Op. 40: III. Allegro molto
8. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in D Minor, L. 135: I. Prologue - Lent. Sostenuto e molto risoluto
9. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in D Minor, L. 135: II. Sérénade - Modérément animé
10. Elena Ballario - Cello Sonata in D Minor, L. 135: III. Finale - Animé. Léger et nerveux



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