Poltera/Brautigam - Felix Mendelssohn: Works for Cello & Piano

It is well known that Felix Mendelssohn�s sister Fanny was a highly talented musician, but fewer are familiar with the fact that there were two other musical siblings in the Mendelssohn family: Rebecka, a gifted singer, and Paul, a very competent amateur cellist. It is to Paul, a banker by profession, that we owe the existence of much of Felix�s music for the instrument, which in spite of Beethoven�s endeavours, hadn�t yet become firmly established as a duo partner of the piano. Mendelssohn�s works for cello and piano are here presented by Christian Polt�ra and Ronald Brautigam, who open with the Variations concertantes in D major, composed in 1829. Brautigam has recently released the composer�s Lieder ohne Worte, performing them on a copy of a piano by Pleyel from 1830, and plays the same instrument on the present disc. Meanwhile, Polt�ra has chosen to equip his 1711 Stradivarius cello with gut strings, and together the two musicians and their instruments create a sound which is both flexible, transparent and vigorous � ideal for Mendelssohn�s scores. The two substantial sonatas, composed in 1838 and 1843, are separated on the disc by a brief �Albumblatt� and a Romance sans paroles in D major, the only �song without words� that Mendelssohn wrote for two instruments rather than piano solo.