Feature Article by Jerry Dubins, March 2015
Chatting with Kim Cook, Cellist Extraordinaire
A graduate of Yale and the University of Illinois, Kim Cook studied with Gabriel Magyar, Aldo Parisot, Alan Harris, and János Starker. She was principal cellist of the São Paulo Symphony under the direction of Eleazar de Carvalho, and taught at New Mexico State before assuming her current position as professor of cello at Penn State.
Kim has performed to critical acclaim as a soloist in 28 countries including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, China, Israel, Jordan, Latin America, and throughout the United States. She has toured extensively as an international artistic ambassador for the U. S. State Department, presenting concerts and master classes internationally. Recent performances include solo recitals in New York, Baltimore, and at the University of Cambridge, and concerto performances with the Dublin Festival Orchestra in Ireland and the Volgograd Symphony in Russia. Recent concerts have included appearances as soloist with the Spiltski Virtuozi in Split, Croatia, and in the fall of 2014, with the orchestra (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
JD:This interview was sparked by receipt of three of your albums. I note that you have taken an interest in what might be considered somewhat off-the-beaten-path repertoire, though not necessarily from the 19th century. You’ve gone in the other direction to give us 20th-century works by Kodály, Hindemith, George Crumb, and a composer I’ve never heard of, Zdeněk Pololánik. I know you’ve also recorded “warhorses” by Dvořák, Lalo, and Saint-Saëns, but first tell me about the less-well-known repertoire that interests you.
KC:The capriccio by Zdeněk Pololánik was commissioned jointly by the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State for this performance and subsequent recording. This concerto is one of five concertos that I have premiered, some of which have been commissioned by or for me. Pololánik is known in the Czech Republic for his classical compositions as well as some works for film. We were privileged to work with Pololánik prior to the concert and the recording of this work. Performing works by contemporary composers has been important to me since my time at the University of Illinois, where I performed many works by student composers. I was involved in contemporary chamber music ensembles there, at Yale, and in Brazil with a group called Nexus. In São Paulo, I performed many new works by Brazilian composers. I also recorded premieres of chamber music by the late 19th-century composer Henrique Oswaldo for the Goethe Institute. Later, in Cleveland, I was involved with Epicycle, a contemporary ensemble, commissioning and premiering chamber music works. In Cleveland, I worked with Dennis Eberhard, composer in residence for the Cleveland Orchestra. He wrote a solo suite for me, which I premiered at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as a trio for harp, violin, and cello that I performed at the World Music Festival in Joensuu, Finland. In 2013, I commissioned and premiered an interesting new concerto by Venezuelan/American composer Efrain Amaya, with funding provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
The works by Kodály, Crumb, and Hindemith are well known to cellists, especially the Kodály [the solo cello sonata]. I worked with two Hungarian cellists on this piece, Gabriel Magyar and János Starker, both of whom had worked with Kodály himself. The work is an amazing, imaginative achievement, which still provides inspiration to performers and composers, transforming the idea of the colors and textures that are possible on the cello. One notable technique that he used was scordatura (unusual tuning of the strings) where the G and C strings are tuned down a half step to B and F♯. This gives the sonority of the instrument a distinctive, dark, more resonant tone, with B as the lowest note. I was so enamored of this piece that I chose it for my programs both at Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall in London. Although many of the special effects used in this piece have been used before (double-stops, trills, ponticello, fast runs, pizzicato, even scordatura), in this piece they are used in creative combinations, thereby creating an entirely new range of sound. Kodály utilizes melodic and rhythmic elements of the folk music of Hungary, as well as imitating the sounds of many of the traditional folk instruments. The work brings together both modern and traditional elements, with its harmonic center based in B Minor. Surprisingly, the period between 1914 and 1920 includes such disparate pieces for cello as suites by Reger, the great concerto by Elgar, Schelomo by Bloch, the sonata by Debussy, the Élegie by Fauré, and Three Pieces by Webern.
JD: What are the technical challenges posed by some of these more modern cello works compared to the more familiar 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire?
KC: Many of these pieces call for expanded techniques and tone colors without regard to the technical difficulties. For example, Amaya’s Concerto calls for an extended passage of unisons that is technically very difficult because it requires a hand stretch beyond an octave. It produces an unusual tone color, creating an eerie quality on the cello.
JD: Are audiences receptive to a work such as the Crumb Sonata? What do you find their responses to be?
KC:The Crumb Sonata is very atmospheric, and I think that it is more easily accessible to audiences than perhaps some other 20th-century works, such as the Kodály. It depends on the context. The Kodály is about 45 minutes long in its entirety, and so I have played many recitals in which I will intersperse a movement or two of the contemporary works, and this seems to help to introduce the works, while also providing some of the other favorite cello repertoire of Brahms and Beethoven.
JD: I suppose it’s an inescapable truth that we have Bach to thank for every work for solo cello since, including those by Crumb, Kodály, Hindemith, Max Reger, and Bloch. Can the techniques required to play these pieces be traced back to Bach’s suites for solo cello, or do they pose fundamentally new and different difficulties?
KC: Bach provides a solid groundwork for our entire repertoire. Bach is like the Bible for most cellists. We play these works for enjoyment, for technical challenges, and as a popular addition to programs for any audience. The technical challenges posed by the suites include a legato détaché, creating a smooth line while continually changing the direction of the bow, and it is perhaps the most difficult basic element of cello playing. If this can be “mastered,” it gives us a great advantage in any other repertoire. The first five suites are primarily in the lower position, and if the Sixth is played on a regular cello, it is played in the upper positions, so they cover a wide range of the instrument’s geography.
JD: Since I raised the subject of Bach, I have to ask you if the solo cello suites are in your future.
KC: Recently, I had my 17th-century English cello adjusted with a Baroque bridge, tailpiece, and gut strings. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with this instrumental set-up, and I performed the Fifth Suite on this cello in September. I love the colors, new sonorities, and challenges that the strings and lower pitch pose. I played the cello tuned at A=415 for the Bach Fifth Suite, and then for a contrast, I played the first movement of the solo sonata by Kodály on my Galimberti, tuned at A=440, but a half step low for the scordatura of Kodály. The pitch of the lower strings matched the lower strings of the Bach, so it provided a wonderful transition for the 200-year contrast of pieces. When I am more accustomed to the Baroque cello, I plan to record the suites at the beautiful Sprague Hall at Yale.
JD: I love the Dvořák Concerto; I just don’t love it as much or believe it to be as great a musical work as the Elgar Concerto. Chalk it up to my emotional response to the profound sadness and sense of personal loss Elgar expresses in this music. What are your feelings about the Elgar Concerto, and do you have any plans possibly to record it?
KC:Yes, I love the Elgar Concerto, and I do have plans to record it next year. I performed it in Kiev a couple of years ago, and it was to be recorded, but there was a glitch with the recording, and so it was postponed. I was awarded a grant from our Institute for Arts and Humanities last year to record the Elgar and Schumann concertos for CD this coming year. The concerto by Elgar was written in 1919 and reflected Elgar’s a deep sense of disappointment that he felt after the war. I am amazed at how he was able to translate this feeling of melancholy so effectively into this great work.
JD: A concerto you have recorded is the Lalo. It used to be more popular than it is today. The Lalo Concerto, along with the Saint-Saëns A-Minor Concerto, were the first two cello concertos I acquired on record. It wasn’t long afterwards that I acquired my second cello concerto recording, another London LP, this time of the Haydn D-Major and Boccherini B♭-Major concertos, the now dis- credited Grützmacher edition. Why do you suppose the Lalo, which has everything going for it a good cello concerto should, has lost some of its former appeal?
KC: Lalo has always been popular with cellists, but there are usually only one or two slots for cellists in an orchestra season, so they prefer to program the Dvořák, Elgar, or Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, and some orchestras have done new commissions as well. (I still love the Grützmacher Boccherini.)
JD: Tell me about your experiences working with the conductors and orchestras for your concerto albums, one with Gerardo Edelstein and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic for the Dvořák Concerto, Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, and the Pololánik we spoke of earlier; another with the Philharmonica Bulgarica under two conductors, Valeri Vatchev and Grigor Palikarov, for the Lalo and Saint-Saëns concertos and Fauré’s Élégie; and what I gather is your latest album, containing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, with the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Serov.
KC: Gerardo Edelstein is my dear colleague at Penn State, who has helped to build the orchestral program there. When I arrived in 1991, we had only one cello major and a few violinists. The string faculty worked to recruit the most talented string players from Pennsylvania and beyond, and we brought in many advanced-level international students for our graduate program. By now, we have five full-time string faculty members, 75 string majors, and we have had a thriving international program of string students from over 20 countries. Gerardo led the orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall in 2011 that received two standing ovations! We have enjoyed working together, performing a variety of concertos, from Dvořák in the Czech Republic to Strauss’s Don Quixote at the Dublin Music Festival, to Saint-Saëns in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 2008 (before the unrest began). Gerardo inspires the orchestra to play with a clarity of rhythm and articulation that helps the collaboration with a soloist.
I worked with Valeri Vatchev in the recording of the Saint-Saëns and Fauré Élégie. Tragically, soon after our recording, at the age of 52, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and passed away within three months. We had planned to record the Lalo together shortly after the other recording. Grigor Palikarov is the conductor of the National Opera in Sofia. I enjoyed having the opportunity to work with him, and I think that he was sensitive to the operatic qualities in the Lalo.
For the recording of the Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, I was honored to work with Edward [Eduard] Serov, who was a former assistant to Mravinsky in Leningrad for many of the premieres of Shostakovich’s works. For me, this was a wonderful learning experience. After my performance of the Shostakovich, and before the recording, we talked through the piece, and he said that he thought my performance of the second movement was not sufficiently tragic. He felt that it should be much more austere, more reminiscent of the siege of Leningrad in World War II, when a million people died of starvation. Shostakovich experienced this horrific siege. I recorded this piece in Volgograd (the former Stalingrad), and the atmosphere was unsettling, with all the war memorials as reminders of the history of this major and costly battle.
JD: Tell me about your cello or cellos. Quite a few years separate the earliest of your recordings from your most recent. Do we hear the same instrument on all of them, or have you made one or more trades in that time?
KC: In the earlier recordings you will hear a cello that I commissioned in Nebraska by David Wiebe in 1981. In 2005, I bought an Italian cello made by Luigi Galimberti in 1950, so that is my instrument for the Saint-Saëns and Lalo, as well as for the Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with the Volgograd Symphony.
JD: What are your thoughts and feelings about historical performance practices movement in general, and performing on period instruments in particular?
KC: As I mentioned, I now have an instrument that is set up as a Baroque cello. The performance practice movement was starting to gain recognition when I was in school, and for a while I was not sure whether I would ever perform Bach in a reviewed concert, since there was so much controversy about it. Now, I think that the early music ideas have become more mainstream, and even those who perform on modern instruments use the phrasing concepts and many of the historical elements that were brought forth by early music scholars. I particularly like the idea of bringing out the harmonic underpinnings, and although it is not a new idea, it contrasts from the melodic, romantic interpretation of Bach that was more popular in the 1960s and 70s. I think Bach can withstand a wide range of interpretations, as each performer considers different aspects of the music and of the instrument. In my teaching, I encourage my students to explore the variety of interpretations, requesting that they use the Urtext (original markings from the composer or early sources) as the initial reference. The most important part of an interpretation is to connect to the musical essence of the work.
JD: Finally, I’d like to talk for a moment about the other very important part of your career, that of professor of cello at Penn State School of Music. It’s my personal view that when it comes to music and the arts, America’s public schools have fallen into an irreversible state of decline. There was a time when one or two semesters of music education was required at some point in the K through 12 grades. Even if kids didn’t pursue it on their own, at least they were exposed to one of the foundational pillars of Western culture. Today, there is real danger of the continuity of that culture being lost because knowledge of it is not being transmitted to children in their formative years. Primary school education is crucial. What are your thoughts on this?
KC: I agree that there should be more music education in the schools. When I taught in New Mexico, the state legislature cut most school music programs, making it impossible to sustain a high quality string program. We have been more fortunate in Pennsylvania, where we have had 100 percent placement for our music education students. However, we always feel vulnerable to cuts. One thing that Penn State does very well is to encourage double majors, such as business or marketing with music. I think it is very important to educate musicians to complement their artistic training with skills in other areas. I also encourage my students to be involved in entrepreneurial courses, which we have increased at Penn State. We are building a new recital hall next year, and soon after we will get a concert hall. Since one of my inspirations as a young musician was performing with the Lincoln Youth Symphony (Nebraska) at the Musikverein in Vienna, I think that it is really important for audiences to be able to hear the music we play in a high-quality acoustic.
We have the opportunity to expose 42,000 students to music at Penn State, and we need to take this responsibility seriously. We also offer many opportunities for amateur musicians to play and learn more about music. Music appreciation courses are another vehicle for exposing young people to classical music. I admire my sister Connie Glen, who teaches music appreciation, Broadway musicals, and opera introduction courses at Indiana University. My husband Peter Heaney, a geology professor at Penn State, is also an amateur trumpet player. He plays occasionally with the community orchestra and a municipal band, and he reminds me how important it is to have opportunities for musicians at all levels. My mother was a soprano soloist for our church as I was growing up, and I think that churches still provide an important place for musicians to perform at various levels.
International exposure is another key to spreading musical awareness. During my career, students from over 20 countries have studied string instruments at Penn State. These international students give us a perspective on how our program compares with those in other countries, and how best we can keep the music programs vital in the U.S. In October, a guest cellist visited Penn State from Turkey, and he told me that his professional orchestra is supported by his university, similar to models in Brazil. I would like to see this model supported in the U.S.!!
I have a vibrant studio of cellists at Penn State. We have a regular cello choir that involves up to 30 cellos (including my 17 majors) each year. (You can view it on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=A0iBBw4cHiE—start at 1:25.) I have had some wonderful students at Penn State, and it has been a great pleasure to see them develop successful careers. One of my former students, Mihovil Karuza, is associate professor of cello at the University of Split, and another student, Hillary Vaden Karuza, teaches full time at the Performing Arts High School in Split. They also serve as principal cellists of the Split Opera and chamber orchestra. Another former student, Neemias Santos, is principal cellist of a professional orchestra in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and he is lobbying for music education in the schools. Many of my former students have sent their cello students to Penn State, so I have had some grand-students, and even great-grand-students, in the past few years.
JD: Thank you. But before bidding you goodbye, there’s one last thing I need to ask you. What’s in the works for Kim Cook? Near future plans for concert appearances and new recordings?
KC: As I mentioned before, I plan to record the Bach suites, but before that I have two important projects. The first is to make a video recording/documentary of the tone poem Don Quixote by Strauss in Brazil. This is scheduled for July of 2015. The other project is to record the Elgar and Schumann concertos for CD. In the longer range, I plan to record Italian sonatas by Valentini, Locatelli, and Boccherini.
Reviews by Jerry Dubins
KODÁLY Solo Cello Sonata, op. 8. CRUMB Solo Cello Sonata. HINDEMITH Solo Cello Sonata, op. 25/3 • Kim Cook (vc) • KIM COOK No catalog number (54:36)
DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto in b. BRUCH Kol Nidrei. POLOLÁNIK Capriccio • Kim Cook (vc); Gerardo Edelstein, cond; Bohuslav Martinů P • ACCADEMIA DELL’ARTE No catalog number (67:12)
SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1.1 FAURÉ Élégie.1 LALO Cello Concerto2 • Kim Cook (vc); 1Valeri Vatchev, cond; 2Grigor Palikarov, cond; Philharmonica Bulgarica • MSR 1512 (59:08)
The ordering of the above headnotes is chronological by recording date. The solo cello album, containing sonatas by Kodály, Crumb, and Hindemith, was recorded in Auer Hall at Indiana University in 1998 by Sherene Strausberg, a professional recording and design company, with post-production work done by Bob Klotz and cellist Kim Cook. It’s what we commonly refer to as a self-produced album, which doesn’t mean that the artist set up the equipment, sat down in front of the mikes, and pressed the record button herself. Rather, it means that there is no named manufacturer’s label and the recording has been either wholly financed by the artist or, in this case, partially funded by the Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture.
Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata has fared quite well on record; in fact, hard to believe though it may be, it’s the composer’s most recorded work, beating out even his popular Háry János Suite and Dances of Galánta. How many versions of the sonata were available in 1998 when Cook recorded it, I don’t know, though I suspect fewer than there are today since a number—such as the terrific Hyperion recording of the piece by Natalie Clein I reviewed in 34:2, or the even more recent Lionel Handy performance on Cadenza in 37:3—have since been added to the listings.
I think it’s fair to say that where works for unaccompanied cello are concerned, Kodály’s 1916 Sonata has become as established a standard repertoire work as have the solo cello suites of Bach. Indeed, Kodály himself predicted that “in 25 years no cellist will be accepted who has not played it.” He had good reason for such confidence, because the sonata offers a generously portioned gourmet goulash of Romantic melody, seasoned with just the right amounts of the tart harmonies and dissonances derived from Hungarian folk music, and topped off with just enough virtuosic garnishes to appeal to players and audiences alike.
Kim Cook’s performance of the piece may just be the best I’ve heard yet. Her technical sureness and ease are remarkable enough in themselves, but she plays with a flair—almost a flamboyance where it’s called for—and an emotional intensity that are really gripping. Add to that her truly capacious tone and her way of modulating and controlling it for expressive effect, and you have a performance of Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata that easily vies, in my opinion, for top billing.
Given my general antipathy to the musical avant-garde, in which George Crumb (b. 1929), now 86, has been a willing and noted player for the better part of 50 years, I wasn’t excited by the prospect of listening to his solo cello sonata of 1955. Now that I have listened to it, I can say that it’s not half bad, which, by deduction, means that it can only be half good. It turns out that the piece is an early work, composed by Crumb while still a student, before he began to experiment with electronic amplification and calling for instruments to be played in unconventional ways. The sonata is said to be influenced by Bartók and Hindemith, which I think is a reasonably fair assessment, at least insofar as the first two movements are concerned. The very opening phrases of the work, for example, bear an uncanny resemblance to the beginning of the third movement ( Adagio) of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. The finale of Crumb’s Sonata, however, titled Toccata, seems to draw its inspiration from one of those running gigues with which Bach concluded many of his sonatas, partitas, and suites.
I’m not really in a position to judge Kim Cook’s performance of the Crumb because I don’t have any other recordings of the piece, nor do I recall ever hearing it before this. All I can say is that she sounds as sure and secure in her technique as she does in the Kodály and Hindemith sonatas, and she seems to get into the spirit of the thing.
Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 25/3, is characteristic, as is a good deal of the composer’s chamber music, of his Gebrauchmusik, or “music for use,” style. The cello sonata and three other sonatas, differently instrumented, constitute the op. 25 group composed in 1922: No. 1 for solo viola, No. 2 for viola d’amore and piano, and No. 4 for viola and piano. The No. 3 for solo cello heard here is in five short movements, four of them allegedly composed in a single day. Two quick-paced movements, both of exactly the same duration in Cook’s performance, provide the outer frame or bookends for the entire piece. Two shorter movements, numbers two and four, then provide the internal brackets for the centerpiece of the work, the slow and longest movement, number 3.
Reflecting back on the Crumb Sonata, it’s easy to hear the Hindemith influence, even though Crumb’s opus postdates Hindemith’s by over 30 years. Hindemith’s Sonata is well represented on disc by Wendy Warner, Pieter Wispelwey, and a number of others, including a historical recording by Emanuel Feuermann. But once again, Kim Cook proves herself competitive with the best, offering a truly attention-grabbing performance.
Next in headnote order is the disc containing Dvořák’s Concerto in B Minor. The story of its coming to be is well known. The start of 1894 saw Dvořák still in New York for a third term as director of the National Conservatory. Faculty member and fellow composer Victor Herbert had been working on his Second Cello Concerto in E Minor, which he completed in the early weeks of that year. The work was then scheduled to be premiered in a series of concerts beginning on March 9, and it’s known that Dvořák attended at least two of those performances.
It was Herbert’s concerto that inspired Dvořák to try his hand at composing a cello concerto for the second time; early in his career (1865), he had written a cello concerto in A Major, but turned over the cello part with piano score only to cellist friend Ludevit Peer. Dvořák never orchestrated the A-Major Concerto; that was left to other hands. This time was different. Dvořák would complete the B-Minor Concerto with his own full-score orchestration just two months before he and his wife left the States and returned home to Prague. Though the concerto at that point was officially done, Dvořák revised the work’s coda in memory of Josefina Kaunitzová, the composer’s sister-in-law, who died barely a month after the Dvořáks arrived home.
Although Dvořák had dedicated the concerto to his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan, and wanted no one else to give the first performance, by some uncertain turn of events the work ended up being premiered not by Wihan but by Leo Stern, and neither in New York nor Prague but in London with Dvořák conducting. The concerto, then taken on tour by Stern, was heard in Prague, Leipzig, and Berlin throughout 1896 before the cellist brought it to Chicago, Boston, and New York in 1897–98. And thus it came to pass that the last of Dvořák’s “American” works, with the revised coda as we know it today, was completed in Prague and made the rounds of a number of European capitals before it was ever heard in America.
Looking over the list of some nearly 150 catalog entries for the work, I’d be hard-put to name a cellist who hasn’t recorded it. That sets an impossibly high bar for any player and for any reviewer. I can’t say that Kim Cook’s Dvořák Concerto is the best performance I’ve ever heard because I don’t know what the best performance I’ve ever heard is. I love those by János Starker with Antal Doráti and the London Symphony Orchestra, Pieter Wispelwey’s remake with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Yo-Yo Ma’s earlier recording with Lorin Maazel and the Berlin Philharmonic, though his remake with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, also excellent, pairs the Dvořák with the Victor Herbert Concerto that inspired it. But I can honestly say that Kim Cook’s performance really caught me by surprise. Hearing her play this warhorse goes a long way towards explaining why the work is held in such high regard.
As on her previous solo cello album, Cook’s tone has a fullness, richness, and presence to it that really makes you sit up and take notice. Her bow strokes on f and sfz entrances have that firmness of contact with the string yet cleanness of attack that I so admire in string playing; and her technique, even in those nasty double-stop octave passages, is flawless. But most of all, her reading of the concerto is radiant and ecstatic, and she seems to inspire conductor Gerardo Edelstein and the musicians of the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic to perform as one of the world’s topflight orchestras. Once again, I can’t say whether this is the best Dvořák Cello Concerto ever committed to disc because I probably haven’t heard more than 20 or 25 of the 150 out there; but I will say that of those I have heard, I would easily choose Kim Cook’s if I could only pick one to keep.
Bruch’s Kol Nidrei is as much a staple of the cello repertoire as is Dvořák’s Concerto. It’s a bit of a stretch, however, to believe that the melody Bruch used for his cello and orchestra setting of Kol Nidrei was “unchanged since Moses climbed down from Mount Sinai,” especially since the actual prayer doesn’t seem to have had much currency among rabbinic authorities until the ninth century; and even then, the appropriateness of the text was hotly debated, undergoing numerous changes before becoming more widely accepted in the 15th century. While the words themselves may be ancient, exactly who composed the familiar melody associated with them, or when and where it was composed, remains a mystery. Almost assuredly, it’s of Ashkenazi origin, and was likely first chanted spontaneously by a synagogue cantor no earlier than the 17th century, possibly in Poland or Bohemia. Even today, there are probably as many subtle variations on the original melody as there are cantors who intone it.
Bruch learned a version of the tune from Cantor Abraham Jacob Lichtenstein, Berlin’s chief cantor, when he was introduced to the Lichtenstein family by his teacher, Ferdinand Hiller. Bruch was not Jewish, to the dismay of many Jewish people who would like to think he was, but the melody and the history behind it appealed to the composer’s interest in folk and ethnic music, and prayerful-sounding as his Kol Nidrei may be, it makes no pretense to being a piece of sacred or religious music. Bringing her warm, ample tone to the piece, Kim Cook’s performance of it is lovely and affecting.
Czech composer Zdeněk Pololánik (b. 1935) is a graduate of the Brno and Janáček Conservatories. He has written nearly 700 works, a number of which have been performed across Europe, and in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. His listener-friendly style—at least as exhibited by his capriccio on this disc—has led to his becoming a sought-after composer for film and sacred music. The capriccio was composed expressly for Kim Cook in 2000, and performed by her and Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic under Gerardo Edelstein in 2001.
How to describe the music? Up to a point, it sounds like something that could have been written 100 or more years ago—tuneful melodies, rhythms you can tap your feet to, and traditional textbook harmony. About midway through, there’s a momentary eruptive episode with ever-so-inoffensive dissonance and clangorous orchestration, but it barely lasts long enough to raise an earlobe. For some reason, a tame Richard Strauss comes to mind. The only thing about the piece I find curious is its title. The dictionary definition of “capriccio” is a piece “usually fairly free in form and of a lively character. The typical capriccio is one that is fast, intense, and often virtuosic in nature.” From approximately 5:25 to approximately 15:00, or nine and a half minutes out of this 16-minutes piece, the music is lyrical, rhapsodic, and not what I would call virtuosic, though it is very beautiful.
The third album contains another two cello chestnuts, Saint-Saëns’s A-Minor Concerto, an irresistible, lightweight entertainment piece if ever there was one, and Fauré’s Élégie, a tender lament, except for an agitated central section, that lives up to its title. Perhaps not common knowledge is the fact that the Élégie, originally written for cello and piano, was to have been the slow movement of a cello sonata which Fauré never completed. The movement was too good to line the wastebasket with, and so the composer orchestrated it and published it as a stand-alone piece.
Lalo’s Cello Concerto in D Minor never attained the status of a chestnut, but at one time I believe it was rather more popular with cellists than it seems to be today. The score contains good material and is of solid workmanship, but it had two strikes against it: One, it was overshadowed, as was every other cello concerto, by Dvořák’s; and two, it was overshadowed by Lalo’s own Symphonie espagnole, which, though not for cello, came to be so emblematic of the composer that nothing else he wrote could compete with it.
If anyone can breathe new life into Lalo’s Cello Concerto, it’s Kim Cook. Just listen to her authoritative exchanges with the orchestra in the work’s opening Prelude. She commands your attention and holds it throughout in moments of both arresting declaration and urgent entreaty. And as I said of her Dvořák Concerto with Gerardo Edelstein and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic, Cook here in the Lalo inspires the Philharmonica Bulgarica under Grigor Palikarov to play as if bewitched. As for Cook’s performance of the Saint-Saëns Concerto, I can pay her no higher compliment than to say that it reminds me of another recording of the piece I came to know early on, by Leonard Rose with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Unfortunately, I’ve not had an opportunity to hear Cook’s Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky CD with Eduard Serov and the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra, which she mentions in the interview, but if it’s anything like her three albums I’ve reviewed here, I’m betting it’s a knockout. I can’t wait until her Elgar and Schumann disc comes out. Meanwhile, I’d urge you to acquaint yourself with this very talented and very special artist by acquiring any one, or preferably all three, of the above CDs, which, as of now (December 2014), are all available at Amazon. Jerry Dubins
Chatting with Kim Cook, Cellist Extraordinaire
A graduate of Yale and the University of Illinois, Kim Cook studied with Gabriel Magyar, Aldo Parisot, Alan Harris, and János Starker. She was principal cellist of the São Paulo Symphony under the direction of Eleazar de Carvalho, and taught at New Mexico State before assuming her current position as professor of cello at Penn State.
Kim has performed to critical acclaim as a soloist in 28 countries including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, China, Israel, Jordan, Latin America, and throughout the United States. She has toured extensively as an international artistic ambassador for the U. S. State Department, presenting concerts and master classes internationally. Recent performances include solo recitals in New York, Baltimore, and at the University of Cambridge, and concerto performances with the Dublin Festival Orchestra in Ireland and the Volgograd Symphony in Russia. Recent concerts have included appearances as soloist with the Spiltski Virtuozi in Split, Croatia, and in the fall of 2014, with the orchestra (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
JD:This interview was sparked by receipt of three of your albums. I note that you have taken an interest in what might be considered somewhat off-the-beaten-path repertoire, though not necessarily from the 19th century. You’ve gone in the other direction to give us 20th-century works by Kodály, Hindemith, George Crumb, and a composer I’ve never heard of, Zdeněk Pololánik. I know you’ve also recorded “warhorses” by Dvořák, Lalo, and Saint-Saëns, but first tell me about the less-well-known repertoire that interests you.
KC:The capriccio by Zdeněk Pololánik was commissioned jointly by the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State for this performance and subsequent recording. This concerto is one of five concertos that I have premiered, some of which have been commissioned by or for me. Pololánik is known in the Czech Republic for his classical compositions as well as some works for film. We were privileged to work with Pololánik prior to the concert and the recording of this work. Performing works by contemporary composers has been important to me since my time at the University of Illinois, where I performed many works by student composers. I was involved in contemporary chamber music ensembles there, at Yale, and in Brazil with a group called Nexus. In São Paulo, I performed many new works by Brazilian composers. I also recorded premieres of chamber music by the late 19th-century composer Henrique Oswaldo for the Goethe Institute. Later, in Cleveland, I was involved with Epicycle, a contemporary ensemble, commissioning and premiering chamber music works. In Cleveland, I worked with Dennis Eberhard, composer in residence for the Cleveland Orchestra. He wrote a solo suite for me, which I premiered at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as a trio for harp, violin, and cello that I performed at the World Music Festival in Joensuu, Finland. In 2013, I commissioned and premiered an interesting new concerto by Venezuelan/American composer Efrain Amaya, with funding provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
The works by Kodály, Crumb, and Hindemith are well known to cellists, especially the Kodály [the solo cello sonata]. I worked with two Hungarian cellists on this piece, Gabriel Magyar and János Starker, both of whom had worked with Kodály himself. The work is an amazing, imaginative achievement, which still provides inspiration to performers and composers, transforming the idea of the colors and textures that are possible on the cello. One notable technique that he used was scordatura (unusual tuning of the strings) where the G and C strings are tuned down a half step to B and F♯. This gives the sonority of the instrument a distinctive, dark, more resonant tone, with B as the lowest note. I was so enamored of this piece that I chose it for my programs both at Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall in London. Although many of the special effects used in this piece have been used before (double-stops, trills, ponticello, fast runs, pizzicato, even scordatura), in this piece they are used in creative combinations, thereby creating an entirely new range of sound. Kodály utilizes melodic and rhythmic elements of the folk music of Hungary, as well as imitating the sounds of many of the traditional folk instruments. The work brings together both modern and traditional elements, with its harmonic center based in B Minor. Surprisingly, the period between 1914 and 1920 includes such disparate pieces for cello as suites by Reger, the great concerto by Elgar, Schelomo by Bloch, the sonata by Debussy, the Élegie by Fauré, and Three Pieces by Webern.
JD: What are the technical challenges posed by some of these more modern cello works compared to the more familiar 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire?
KC: Many of these pieces call for expanded techniques and tone colors without regard to the technical difficulties. For example, Amaya’s Concerto calls for an extended passage of unisons that is technically very difficult because it requires a hand stretch beyond an octave. It produces an unusual tone color, creating an eerie quality on the cello.
JD: Are audiences receptive to a work such as the Crumb Sonata? What do you find their responses to be?
KC:The Crumb Sonata is very atmospheric, and I think that it is more easily accessible to audiences than perhaps some other 20th-century works, such as the Kodály. It depends on the context. The Kodály is about 45 minutes long in its entirety, and so I have played many recitals in which I will intersperse a movement or two of the contemporary works, and this seems to help to introduce the works, while also providing some of the other favorite cello repertoire of Brahms and Beethoven.
JD: I suppose it’s an inescapable truth that we have Bach to thank for every work for solo cello since, including those by Crumb, Kodály, Hindemith, Max Reger, and Bloch. Can the techniques required to play these pieces be traced back to Bach’s suites for solo cello, or do they pose fundamentally new and different difficulties?
KC: Bach provides a solid groundwork for our entire repertoire. Bach is like the Bible for most cellists. We play these works for enjoyment, for technical challenges, and as a popular addition to programs for any audience. The technical challenges posed by the suites include a legato détaché, creating a smooth line while continually changing the direction of the bow, and it is perhaps the most difficult basic element of cello playing. If this can be “mastered,” it gives us a great advantage in any other repertoire. The first five suites are primarily in the lower position, and if the Sixth is played on a regular cello, it is played in the upper positions, so they cover a wide range of the instrument’s geography.
JD: Since I raised the subject of Bach, I have to ask you if the solo cello suites are in your future.
KC: Recently, I had my 17th-century English cello adjusted with a Baroque bridge, tailpiece, and gut strings. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with this instrumental set-up, and I performed the Fifth Suite on this cello in September. I love the colors, new sonorities, and challenges that the strings and lower pitch pose. I played the cello tuned at A=415 for the Bach Fifth Suite, and then for a contrast, I played the first movement of the solo sonata by Kodály on my Galimberti, tuned at A=440, but a half step low for the scordatura of Kodály. The pitch of the lower strings matched the lower strings of the Bach, so it provided a wonderful transition for the 200-year contrast of pieces. When I am more accustomed to the Baroque cello, I plan to record the suites at the beautiful Sprague Hall at Yale.
JD: I love the Dvořák Concerto; I just don’t love it as much or believe it to be as great a musical work as the Elgar Concerto. Chalk it up to my emotional response to the profound sadness and sense of personal loss Elgar expresses in this music. What are your feelings about the Elgar Concerto, and do you have any plans possibly to record it?
KC:Yes, I love the Elgar Concerto, and I do have plans to record it next year. I performed it in Kiev a couple of years ago, and it was to be recorded, but there was a glitch with the recording, and so it was postponed. I was awarded a grant from our Institute for Arts and Humanities last year to record the Elgar and Schumann concertos for CD this coming year. The concerto by Elgar was written in 1919 and reflected Elgar’s a deep sense of disappointment that he felt after the war. I am amazed at how he was able to translate this feeling of melancholy so effectively into this great work.
JD: A concerto you have recorded is the Lalo. It used to be more popular than it is today. The Lalo Concerto, along with the Saint-Saëns A-Minor Concerto, were the first two cello concertos I acquired on record. It wasn’t long afterwards that I acquired my second cello concerto recording, another London LP, this time of the Haydn D-Major and Boccherini B♭-Major concertos, the now dis- credited Grützmacher edition. Why do you suppose the Lalo, which has everything going for it a good cello concerto should, has lost some of its former appeal?
KC: Lalo has always been popular with cellists, but there are usually only one or two slots for cellists in an orchestra season, so they prefer to program the Dvořák, Elgar, or Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, and some orchestras have done new commissions as well. (I still love the Grützmacher Boccherini.)
JD: Tell me about your experiences working with the conductors and orchestras for your concerto albums, one with Gerardo Edelstein and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic for the Dvořák Concerto, Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, and the Pololánik we spoke of earlier; another with the Philharmonica Bulgarica under two conductors, Valeri Vatchev and Grigor Palikarov, for the Lalo and Saint-Saëns concertos and Fauré’s Élégie; and what I gather is your latest album, containing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, with the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Serov.
KC: Gerardo Edelstein is my dear colleague at Penn State, who has helped to build the orchestral program there. When I arrived in 1991, we had only one cello major and a few violinists. The string faculty worked to recruit the most talented string players from Pennsylvania and beyond, and we brought in many advanced-level international students for our graduate program. By now, we have five full-time string faculty members, 75 string majors, and we have had a thriving international program of string students from over 20 countries. Gerardo led the orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall in 2011 that received two standing ovations! We have enjoyed working together, performing a variety of concertos, from Dvořák in the Czech Republic to Strauss’s Don Quixote at the Dublin Music Festival, to Saint-Saëns in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 2008 (before the unrest began). Gerardo inspires the orchestra to play with a clarity of rhythm and articulation that helps the collaboration with a soloist.
I worked with Valeri Vatchev in the recording of the Saint-Saëns and Fauré Élégie. Tragically, soon after our recording, at the age of 52, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and passed away within three months. We had planned to record the Lalo together shortly after the other recording. Grigor Palikarov is the conductor of the National Opera in Sofia. I enjoyed having the opportunity to work with him, and I think that he was sensitive to the operatic qualities in the Lalo.
For the recording of the Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, I was honored to work with Edward [Eduard] Serov, who was a former assistant to Mravinsky in Leningrad for many of the premieres of Shostakovich’s works. For me, this was a wonderful learning experience. After my performance of the Shostakovich, and before the recording, we talked through the piece, and he said that he thought my performance of the second movement was not sufficiently tragic. He felt that it should be much more austere, more reminiscent of the siege of Leningrad in World War II, when a million people died of starvation. Shostakovich experienced this horrific siege. I recorded this piece in Volgograd (the former Stalingrad), and the atmosphere was unsettling, with all the war memorials as reminders of the history of this major and costly battle.
JD: Tell me about your cello or cellos. Quite a few years separate the earliest of your recordings from your most recent. Do we hear the same instrument on all of them, or have you made one or more trades in that time?
KC: In the earlier recordings you will hear a cello that I commissioned in Nebraska by David Wiebe in 1981. In 2005, I bought an Italian cello made by Luigi Galimberti in 1950, so that is my instrument for the Saint-Saëns and Lalo, as well as for the Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with the Volgograd Symphony.
JD: What are your thoughts and feelings about historical performance practices movement in general, and performing on period instruments in particular?
KC: As I mentioned, I now have an instrument that is set up as a Baroque cello. The performance practice movement was starting to gain recognition when I was in school, and for a while I was not sure whether I would ever perform Bach in a reviewed concert, since there was so much controversy about it. Now, I think that the early music ideas have become more mainstream, and even those who perform on modern instruments use the phrasing concepts and many of the historical elements that were brought forth by early music scholars. I particularly like the idea of bringing out the harmonic underpinnings, and although it is not a new idea, it contrasts from the melodic, romantic interpretation of Bach that was more popular in the 1960s and 70s. I think Bach can withstand a wide range of interpretations, as each performer considers different aspects of the music and of the instrument. In my teaching, I encourage my students to explore the variety of interpretations, requesting that they use the Urtext (original markings from the composer or early sources) as the initial reference. The most important part of an interpretation is to connect to the musical essence of the work.
JD: Finally, I’d like to talk for a moment about the other very important part of your career, that of professor of cello at Penn State School of Music. It’s my personal view that when it comes to music and the arts, America’s public schools have fallen into an irreversible state of decline. There was a time when one or two semesters of music education was required at some point in the K through 12 grades. Even if kids didn’t pursue it on their own, at least they were exposed to one of the foundational pillars of Western culture. Today, there is real danger of the continuity of that culture being lost because knowledge of it is not being transmitted to children in their formative years. Primary school education is crucial. What are your thoughts on this?
KC: I agree that there should be more music education in the schools. When I taught in New Mexico, the state legislature cut most school music programs, making it impossible to sustain a high quality string program. We have been more fortunate in Pennsylvania, where we have had 100 percent placement for our music education students. However, we always feel vulnerable to cuts. One thing that Penn State does very well is to encourage double majors, such as business or marketing with music. I think it is very important to educate musicians to complement their artistic training with skills in other areas. I also encourage my students to be involved in entrepreneurial courses, which we have increased at Penn State. We are building a new recital hall next year, and soon after we will get a concert hall. Since one of my inspirations as a young musician was performing with the Lincoln Youth Symphony (Nebraska) at the Musikverein in Vienna, I think that it is really important for audiences to be able to hear the music we play in a high-quality acoustic.
We have the opportunity to expose 42,000 students to music at Penn State, and we need to take this responsibility seriously. We also offer many opportunities for amateur musicians to play and learn more about music. Music appreciation courses are another vehicle for exposing young people to classical music. I admire my sister Connie Glen, who teaches music appreciation, Broadway musicals, and opera introduction courses at Indiana University. My husband Peter Heaney, a geology professor at Penn State, is also an amateur trumpet player. He plays occasionally with the community orchestra and a municipal band, and he reminds me how important it is to have opportunities for musicians at all levels. My mother was a soprano soloist for our church as I was growing up, and I think that churches still provide an important place for musicians to perform at various levels.
International exposure is another key to spreading musical awareness. During my career, students from over 20 countries have studied string instruments at Penn State. These international students give us a perspective on how our program compares with those in other countries, and how best we can keep the music programs vital in the U.S. In October, a guest cellist visited Penn State from Turkey, and he told me that his professional orchestra is supported by his university, similar to models in Brazil. I would like to see this model supported in the U.S.!!
I have a vibrant studio of cellists at Penn State. We have a regular cello choir that involves up to 30 cellos (including my 17 majors) each year. (You can view it on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=A0iBBw4cHiE—start at 1:25.) I have had some wonderful students at Penn State, and it has been a great pleasure to see them develop successful careers. One of my former students, Mihovil Karuza, is associate professor of cello at the University of Split, and another student, Hillary Vaden Karuza, teaches full time at the Performing Arts High School in Split. They also serve as principal cellists of the Split Opera and chamber orchestra. Another former student, Neemias Santos, is principal cellist of a professional orchestra in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and he is lobbying for music education in the schools. Many of my former students have sent their cello students to Penn State, so I have had some grand-students, and even great-grand-students, in the past few years.
JD: Thank you. But before bidding you goodbye, there’s one last thing I need to ask you. What’s in the works for Kim Cook? Near future plans for concert appearances and new recordings?
KC: As I mentioned before, I plan to record the Bach suites, but before that I have two important projects. The first is to make a video recording/documentary of the tone poem Don Quixote by Strauss in Brazil. This is scheduled for July of 2015. The other project is to record the Elgar and Schumann concertos for CD. In the longer range, I plan to record Italian sonatas by Valentini, Locatelli, and Boccherini.
Reviews by Jerry Dubins
KODÁLY Solo Cello Sonata, op. 8. CRUMB Solo Cello Sonata. HINDEMITH Solo Cello Sonata, op. 25/3 • Kim Cook (vc) • KIM COOK No catalog number (54:36)
DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto in b. BRUCH Kol Nidrei. POLOLÁNIK Capriccio • Kim Cook (vc); Gerardo Edelstein, cond; Bohuslav Martinů P • ACCADEMIA DELL’ARTE No catalog number (67:12)
SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1.1 FAURÉ Élégie.1 LALO Cello Concerto2 • Kim Cook (vc); 1Valeri Vatchev, cond; 2Grigor Palikarov, cond; Philharmonica Bulgarica • MSR 1512 (59:08)
The ordering of the above headnotes is chronological by recording date. The solo cello album, containing sonatas by Kodály, Crumb, and Hindemith, was recorded in Auer Hall at Indiana University in 1998 by Sherene Strausberg, a professional recording and design company, with post-production work done by Bob Klotz and cellist Kim Cook. It’s what we commonly refer to as a self-produced album, which doesn’t mean that the artist set up the equipment, sat down in front of the mikes, and pressed the record button herself. Rather, it means that there is no named manufacturer’s label and the recording has been either wholly financed by the artist or, in this case, partially funded by the Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture.
Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata has fared quite well on record; in fact, hard to believe though it may be, it’s the composer’s most recorded work, beating out even his popular Háry János Suite and Dances of Galánta. How many versions of the sonata were available in 1998 when Cook recorded it, I don’t know, though I suspect fewer than there are today since a number—such as the terrific Hyperion recording of the piece by Natalie Clein I reviewed in 34:2, or the even more recent Lionel Handy performance on Cadenza in 37:3—have since been added to the listings.
I think it’s fair to say that where works for unaccompanied cello are concerned, Kodály’s 1916 Sonata has become as established a standard repertoire work as have the solo cello suites of Bach. Indeed, Kodály himself predicted that “in 25 years no cellist will be accepted who has not played it.” He had good reason for such confidence, because the sonata offers a generously portioned gourmet goulash of Romantic melody, seasoned with just the right amounts of the tart harmonies and dissonances derived from Hungarian folk music, and topped off with just enough virtuosic garnishes to appeal to players and audiences alike.
Kim Cook’s performance of the piece may just be the best I’ve heard yet. Her technical sureness and ease are remarkable enough in themselves, but she plays with a flair—almost a flamboyance where it’s called for—and an emotional intensity that are really gripping. Add to that her truly capacious tone and her way of modulating and controlling it for expressive effect, and you have a performance of Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata that easily vies, in my opinion, for top billing.
Given my general antipathy to the musical avant-garde, in which George Crumb (b. 1929), now 86, has been a willing and noted player for the better part of 50 years, I wasn’t excited by the prospect of listening to his solo cello sonata of 1955. Now that I have listened to it, I can say that it’s not half bad, which, by deduction, means that it can only be half good. It turns out that the piece is an early work, composed by Crumb while still a student, before he began to experiment with electronic amplification and calling for instruments to be played in unconventional ways. The sonata is said to be influenced by Bartók and Hindemith, which I think is a reasonably fair assessment, at least insofar as the first two movements are concerned. The very opening phrases of the work, for example, bear an uncanny resemblance to the beginning of the third movement ( Adagio) of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. The finale of Crumb’s Sonata, however, titled Toccata, seems to draw its inspiration from one of those running gigues with which Bach concluded many of his sonatas, partitas, and suites.
I’m not really in a position to judge Kim Cook’s performance of the Crumb because I don’t have any other recordings of the piece, nor do I recall ever hearing it before this. All I can say is that she sounds as sure and secure in her technique as she does in the Kodály and Hindemith sonatas, and she seems to get into the spirit of the thing.
Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 25/3, is characteristic, as is a good deal of the composer’s chamber music, of his Gebrauchmusik, or “music for use,” style. The cello sonata and three other sonatas, differently instrumented, constitute the op. 25 group composed in 1922: No. 1 for solo viola, No. 2 for viola d’amore and piano, and No. 4 for viola and piano. The No. 3 for solo cello heard here is in five short movements, four of them allegedly composed in a single day. Two quick-paced movements, both of exactly the same duration in Cook’s performance, provide the outer frame or bookends for the entire piece. Two shorter movements, numbers two and four, then provide the internal brackets for the centerpiece of the work, the slow and longest movement, number 3.
Reflecting back on the Crumb Sonata, it’s easy to hear the Hindemith influence, even though Crumb’s opus postdates Hindemith’s by over 30 years. Hindemith’s Sonata is well represented on disc by Wendy Warner, Pieter Wispelwey, and a number of others, including a historical recording by Emanuel Feuermann. But once again, Kim Cook proves herself competitive with the best, offering a truly attention-grabbing performance.
Next in headnote order is the disc containing Dvořák’s Concerto in B Minor. The story of its coming to be is well known. The start of 1894 saw Dvořák still in New York for a third term as director of the National Conservatory. Faculty member and fellow composer Victor Herbert had been working on his Second Cello Concerto in E Minor, which he completed in the early weeks of that year. The work was then scheduled to be premiered in a series of concerts beginning on March 9, and it’s known that Dvořák attended at least two of those performances.
It was Herbert’s concerto that inspired Dvořák to try his hand at composing a cello concerto for the second time; early in his career (1865), he had written a cello concerto in A Major, but turned over the cello part with piano score only to cellist friend Ludevit Peer. Dvořák never orchestrated the A-Major Concerto; that was left to other hands. This time was different. Dvořák would complete the B-Minor Concerto with his own full-score orchestration just two months before he and his wife left the States and returned home to Prague. Though the concerto at that point was officially done, Dvořák revised the work’s coda in memory of Josefina Kaunitzová, the composer’s sister-in-law, who died barely a month after the Dvořáks arrived home.
Although Dvořák had dedicated the concerto to his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan, and wanted no one else to give the first performance, by some uncertain turn of events the work ended up being premiered not by Wihan but by Leo Stern, and neither in New York nor Prague but in London with Dvořák conducting. The concerto, then taken on tour by Stern, was heard in Prague, Leipzig, and Berlin throughout 1896 before the cellist brought it to Chicago, Boston, and New York in 1897–98. And thus it came to pass that the last of Dvořák’s “American” works, with the revised coda as we know it today, was completed in Prague and made the rounds of a number of European capitals before it was ever heard in America.
Looking over the list of some nearly 150 catalog entries for the work, I’d be hard-put to name a cellist who hasn’t recorded it. That sets an impossibly high bar for any player and for any reviewer. I can’t say that Kim Cook’s Dvořák Concerto is the best performance I’ve ever heard because I don’t know what the best performance I’ve ever heard is. I love those by János Starker with Antal Doráti and the London Symphony Orchestra, Pieter Wispelwey’s remake with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Yo-Yo Ma’s earlier recording with Lorin Maazel and the Berlin Philharmonic, though his remake with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, also excellent, pairs the Dvořák with the Victor Herbert Concerto that inspired it. But I can honestly say that Kim Cook’s performance really caught me by surprise. Hearing her play this warhorse goes a long way towards explaining why the work is held in such high regard.
As on her previous solo cello album, Cook’s tone has a fullness, richness, and presence to it that really makes you sit up and take notice. Her bow strokes on f and sfz entrances have that firmness of contact with the string yet cleanness of attack that I so admire in string playing; and her technique, even in those nasty double-stop octave passages, is flawless. But most of all, her reading of the concerto is radiant and ecstatic, and she seems to inspire conductor Gerardo Edelstein and the musicians of the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic to perform as one of the world’s topflight orchestras. Once again, I can’t say whether this is the best Dvořák Cello Concerto ever committed to disc because I probably haven’t heard more than 20 or 25 of the 150 out there; but I will say that of those I have heard, I would easily choose Kim Cook’s if I could only pick one to keep.
Bruch’s Kol Nidrei is as much a staple of the cello repertoire as is Dvořák’s Concerto. It’s a bit of a stretch, however, to believe that the melody Bruch used for his cello and orchestra setting of Kol Nidrei was “unchanged since Moses climbed down from Mount Sinai,” especially since the actual prayer doesn’t seem to have had much currency among rabbinic authorities until the ninth century; and even then, the appropriateness of the text was hotly debated, undergoing numerous changes before becoming more widely accepted in the 15th century. While the words themselves may be ancient, exactly who composed the familiar melody associated with them, or when and where it was composed, remains a mystery. Almost assuredly, it’s of Ashkenazi origin, and was likely first chanted spontaneously by a synagogue cantor no earlier than the 17th century, possibly in Poland or Bohemia. Even today, there are probably as many subtle variations on the original melody as there are cantors who intone it.
Bruch learned a version of the tune from Cantor Abraham Jacob Lichtenstein, Berlin’s chief cantor, when he was introduced to the Lichtenstein family by his teacher, Ferdinand Hiller. Bruch was not Jewish, to the dismay of many Jewish people who would like to think he was, but the melody and the history behind it appealed to the composer’s interest in folk and ethnic music, and prayerful-sounding as his Kol Nidrei may be, it makes no pretense to being a piece of sacred or religious music. Bringing her warm, ample tone to the piece, Kim Cook’s performance of it is lovely and affecting.
Czech composer Zdeněk Pololánik (b. 1935) is a graduate of the Brno and Janáček Conservatories. He has written nearly 700 works, a number of which have been performed across Europe, and in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. His listener-friendly style—at least as exhibited by his capriccio on this disc—has led to his becoming a sought-after composer for film and sacred music. The capriccio was composed expressly for Kim Cook in 2000, and performed by her and Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic under Gerardo Edelstein in 2001.
How to describe the music? Up to a point, it sounds like something that could have been written 100 or more years ago—tuneful melodies, rhythms you can tap your feet to, and traditional textbook harmony. About midway through, there’s a momentary eruptive episode with ever-so-inoffensive dissonance and clangorous orchestration, but it barely lasts long enough to raise an earlobe. For some reason, a tame Richard Strauss comes to mind. The only thing about the piece I find curious is its title. The dictionary definition of “capriccio” is a piece “usually fairly free in form and of a lively character. The typical capriccio is one that is fast, intense, and often virtuosic in nature.” From approximately 5:25 to approximately 15:00, or nine and a half minutes out of this 16-minutes piece, the music is lyrical, rhapsodic, and not what I would call virtuosic, though it is very beautiful.
The third album contains another two cello chestnuts, Saint-Saëns’s A-Minor Concerto, an irresistible, lightweight entertainment piece if ever there was one, and Fauré’s Élégie, a tender lament, except for an agitated central section, that lives up to its title. Perhaps not common knowledge is the fact that the Élégie, originally written for cello and piano, was to have been the slow movement of a cello sonata which Fauré never completed. The movement was too good to line the wastebasket with, and so the composer orchestrated it and published it as a stand-alone piece.
Lalo’s Cello Concerto in D Minor never attained the status of a chestnut, but at one time I believe it was rather more popular with cellists than it seems to be today. The score contains good material and is of solid workmanship, but it had two strikes against it: One, it was overshadowed, as was every other cello concerto, by Dvořák’s; and two, it was overshadowed by Lalo’s own Symphonie espagnole, which, though not for cello, came to be so emblematic of the composer that nothing else he wrote could compete with it.
If anyone can breathe new life into Lalo’s Cello Concerto, it’s Kim Cook. Just listen to her authoritative exchanges with the orchestra in the work’s opening Prelude. She commands your attention and holds it throughout in moments of both arresting declaration and urgent entreaty. And as I said of her Dvořák Concerto with Gerardo Edelstein and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic, Cook here in the Lalo inspires the Philharmonica Bulgarica under Grigor Palikarov to play as if bewitched. As for Cook’s performance of the Saint-Saëns Concerto, I can pay her no higher compliment than to say that it reminds me of another recording of the piece I came to know early on, by Leonard Rose with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Unfortunately, I’ve not had an opportunity to hear Cook’s Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky CD with Eduard Serov and the Volgograd Symphony Orchestra, which she mentions in the interview, but if it’s anything like her three albums I’ve reviewed here, I’m betting it’s a knockout. I can’t wait until her Elgar and Schumann disc comes out. Meanwhile, I’d urge you to acquaint yourself with this very talented and very special artist by acquiring any one, or preferably all three, of the above CDs, which, as of now (December 2014), are all available at Amazon. Jerry Dubins