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This album is released by: Phaedra Music
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The year 2007 saw the death of Mstislav “Slava” Rostropovich, the Russian cello virtuoso, who more than anyone else put the cello on the map as one of the most expressive solo instruments. In that same year the Belgian music world bade farewell to Eric Feldbusch (1922–2007), a musician five years older than Rostropovich and with less of an international reputation, but who, in his own way, exerted considerable influence in the cello and its repertoire. In Belgium he was one of the most important and influential cellists of his time.
Even as a child Désiré Feldbusch, who later preferred Eric as his artist’s name, was noted for his musical talent and, as often happened in those days, entered the conservatory at a very tender age. His preference for the cello was manifest, and in Liège he found a renowned cello teacher in Hubert Rogister. At the age of fifteen, he was awarded a First Prize for cello, magna cum laude, and two years later he received the Higher Diploma, this time summa cum laude and with the jury’s congratulations. He excelled in other subjects as well, and obtained First Prizes in chamber music, harmony, counterpoint and fugue. His sterling results in these “minor” subjects were indicative of his talents as a composer, which he was to develop later in life.
A close look at Feldbusch’s career as a solists, makes it obvious that he was the artistic equal of the greats of his time. In the 1941 Pablo Casals Competition, only world famous Jacqueline Depré preceded him. Six years later he won that Competition. At the first International Cello Competition in Prague in 1950, he was awarded the third prize, after no lesser names than Daniil Shafran and Mstislav Rostropovich, who shared the first prize. In addition, Feldbusch took off with the public’s prize and obtained the highest possible score for his interpretations of Bach’s cello suites.
Unlike some internationally known soloists, Feldbusch had a career in orchestras. He played in the Maastricht Symphony and he was first cellist and soloists in the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège. He also founded the Ad Artem Quartet and the Quatuor Municipal de Liège, but the biggest honor befell the piano trio that he co-founded with pianist Naum Sluszny and violinist Carlo Van Neste, for from 1961 they were entitled to call themselves the Queen Elisabeth Trio. In this trio Feldbusch conquered numerous stages in Europe and also in the USA and in Africa. The connection between Feldbusch and Queen Elisabeth goes back to the years of World War II. As early as 1941 he had been admitted as a free student at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. Later he was to become a member of the governing board of the Queen Elisabeth Competition and of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel.
In this recording Eric Feldbusch’s music is surrounded by music written by the Ghent composer Georges Lonque and a remarkable arrangement by the 19th century cello virtuoso Carlo Alfredo Piatti of a sonata by baroque composer Pietro Locatelli.
For his 1928 composition Vieux Quai (Old Quay ) Georges Lonque (1900–1967) let himself be inspired by the eponymous poem of Georges Rodenbach. Rodenbach, related to the well-known Belgian brewers’ family, wrote in the style of the symbolists, which often makes his poetry very hermetic. Vieux Quai uses innumerable images from cityscapes that refer to old times and transience, like the setting sun, blackened façades and bells tolling in the mists. In Rodenbach’s work, and particularly in his best-known novel, Bruges-la-Morte (The Dead [City of] Bruges), the city is often a symbol of a character full of emotions and memories and often desolately sad. This poem, too, has a scene with lovers, as well as a striking presence of a flute-player toward the end of the poem. It may have been this musical element that caused Lonque to translate his interpretation of the poem into sound. The mood of Lonque’s Vieux quai is predominantly lyrical and very expressive. The influence of French impressionism is obvious, but Lonque has his own feeling for harmony and rhythm. His musical phrases are built symmetrically, which makes for a certain amount of peace and quiet.
Trois movements shows Eric Feldbusch at his most typical. The first movement of this composition for piano is playful and carefree. He has both the pianist’s hands range energetically over the keys, often changing places at breakneck speed and making wide jumps. Feldbusch knew the techniques of serialism, and in this composition we clearly hear and see its traces. Without dogmatically sticking to a series of pitches he creates an atonal and rich harmony, in which the major seventh (one of the most dissonant intervals) is omnipresent. This fast passage is broken abruptly by a very different kind of music, le double plus lent (twice as slow), after which Feldbusch, equally unexpectedly varies the beginning. In the second movement the atmosphere darkens considerably. Above the score Feldbusch writes Grave, and here too he opts for a structure in which the opening bars are varied at the end, which strict serialism does not allow. The third movement is a theme and s series of variations. Again he goes for extremely varied tempos in order to create as much variety as possible in his material. At the very end the major seventh recurs in both hands, to confirm that this is indeed the basis of the work.
Mosaïque is a suite for cello solo, in which Feldbusch fully exploits all the possibilities of his instrument. Each piece of the mosaic has a title of its own. Improvisation is followed by Ysmakh Moshe and Ana Pana Dodeck. This is a wordplay on mosaic, which denotes a structure in which small elements combine to form something larger and which also refers to the name of Mozes, in the Old Testament. For each movement is based on a Jewish melody, respectively from Germany, Spain and Poland. The combination of popular elements and recognizable melodies on the one hand and the contemporary writing of Feldbusch (including elaborate polyphony) make this mosaic very colorful indeed.
In Cadence et Allegro, cello and piano finally join forces. The solo cadenza that opens the work can only have been composed by a master cellist. Feldbusch combines sustained two-note chords with quietly pulsating pizzicatos and keeps up the two-part polyphony almost throughout the cadenza. When the piano joins the cello in the Allegro, they quickly engage in a cat-and-mouse game, in which the cello sometimes takes the lead, whereas at other times the piano takes off with musical motives. The composer-cellist does not shy away from virtuosity, but again provides an important moment of rest by lowering the tempo. The road to the finale takes in the reprise of the opening themes and ends in a final chord that, while dissonant, nevertheless feels like a perfect conclusion.
Pietro Locatelli (1695–1764) may be at a remove of two centuries from the sprit of the times in which Georges Lonque and Eric Feldbusch were active. But in the Sonatas that Carlo Alfredo Piatti (1822–1901) managed to fuse into a new entity, the duo of cello and piano are excellent in combining lyricism and rhythmic subtlety. Piatti was a 19th-century cellist who in his own time was universally praised for both his performances and his compositions. Franz Liszt placed an instrument at his disposal, and later he was to play the Stradivarius now named after him. 19th-century musicians allowed themselves much more freedom than is the custom today in dealing with music from the past. Unhindered by any wish for historical authenticity. Piatti combined several movements of Locatelli’s Violin Sonata #6 and #12 with additions of his own pen. The result is a baroque mosaic, given additional color by splendid Romantic cadenzas, which show up the qualities of the cello as a virtuoso solo instrument.
Phaedra is the only label with a 100% focus on music from composers of the Low Countries – ancient, classical and contemporary. Our goal is to record, publish and perform this wonderful but little known music and spread it globally.
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