Paul Tortelier: The Great EMI Recordings Booklet with complete track list and session details, and a 15-page essay by Tully Potter. (EMI)

Coming to grips with the French cellist Paul Tortelier in the 1950s and ’60s was a necessary rite of passage for adventurous young cellists. His recordings made important statements about post-Casals cello styles and signaled the major role the cello would play in the coming growth of the classical music industry. He had a huge technique, which conquered all in its path; as a performer he wore his soul proudly, charismatically, and eloquently on his sleeve.

This 20-CD box set—which includes a booklet with complete track listing and session details, and a 15-page essay by Tully Potter—gathers in one impressive anthology the celebrated EMI recordings of a world-class string player who remains virtually unknown in the United States.

There were many iconic aspects to Tortelier’s life and career: He pioneered the angled endpin that Rostropovich later adopted. He spent a year on a kibbutz in Israel when tensions mounted in the Middle East in the mid-’50s. He was the “other cellist” on the fabled Prades Festival recording of Schubert’s C major Quintet with Stern, Schneider, Katims, and Casals. As a matter of conscience, he refused to play in the United States for 30 years during the Cold War.

Born in 1914 in Paris, Tortelier already was a virtuoso to be reckoned with when World War II swallowed him up. When the war ended, he emerged as one of the leading young lions. The cellist Emanuel Feuermann had died during the war, and Pablo Casals hadn’t yet returned from his self-imposed exile in France. Mstislav Rostropovich and Daniil Shafran were making growling sounds in Russia. Gregor Piatigorsky and Pierre Fournier were still the marquee cellists they had been before the war, and Janos Starker was waiting in the wings.

When the recording industry switched to stereo in the late ’50s, Tortelier was in the right spot at the right time. He embarked with EMI on what would be his definitive statements on the cello repertoire. His interpretive approach resembled British cellist Jacqueline du Pré’s in its range, from wide swaths of emotion and sound to tender intimacy. Both had technique to burn and a casual ease with using it. But both gave their entire heart and spirit to whatever they recorded.

The repertoire on these EMI recordings includes the key cello masterpieces, Bach’s Solo Suites, the big concertos, and a dazzling variety of miniatures and encore pieces. The sound here has been refocused a bit to better suit current tastes. Young cellists should listen and be inspired not only by the playing, but by Tortelier’s commitment to artistic integrity, which was played out, in part, on the world’s political stage. —Laurence Vittes

J. S. Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Sergey Khachatryan, violin. (Naïve)

Pillars of the violin repertoire, Bach’s unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas have been recorded by virtually every great violinist, past and present. Only players with consummate technical command and a compelling personal interpretation should attempt to add to that discography.

Sergey Khachatryan has both these qualities in abundance. His previous record­ings featured romantic favorites by Sibelius, Khachaturian, Shostakovich, and Franck, so his choice of unaccompanied Bach for this CD seems somewhat surprising. But it immediately becomes clear that he has made these works his own.

Technically, his playing is absolutely stunning in its perfection and effortlessness. His intonation is immaculate, his facility unlimited but never used for display. His bow control is incredible and puts an enormous variety of articulation at his disposal. His sound is flawlessly pure, even in the chords. Stylistically, his playing is untouched by “period practice”: his tone is rich and ravishing, with vibrato on every note. (Remember that before the “authentic” revolution, Bach was generally played this way.)

Musically, the performance is persuasive, despite a few cavils. To underline structure and phrasing, Khachatryan often makes long pauses between phrases and interrupts dynamic buildups with sudden drops. He brings out voices with dynamic and extended agogic accents, but breaks all chords upward, even when the theme lies in the bass. And he mars the simplicity of the Third Partita with fussy rhythms and dynamics. But these are minor flaws in a performance hard to match for superb instrumental mastery and tonal beauty. —Edith Eisler

Encores. Cuarteto Latinoamericano. (Dorian)

Leave it to Cuarteto Latinoamericano to come up with one of the most engaging, and unpretentious, contemporary music recordings in years. This critically acclaimed Mexican music ensemble—the three Bitrán brothers: Saúl, first violin; Arón, second violin; Alvaro, cello; and Javier Montiel, viola—has a long history of championing the music of Latin America—the quartet was nominated recently for a Grammy Award for the sixth volume of its recordings of the Villa-Lobos quartet cycle (which was released last year in its entirety as a box set).

This collection of 11 encore pieces returns to that theme, featuring works by Osvaldo Golijov, Roberto Sierra, Carlos Sanchez-Gutiérrez, Adolfo Salazar, and others. But at the heart of this fascinating project are the three composers—the American composer Sierra, Radamés Gnattali of Brazil, and Stefano Scodanibbio of Italy—enlisted to arrange these sometimes obscure, sometimes iconic works, many of which employ various advanced harmonic techniques.

One of the best examples of their creative contribution is a beautiful, dirgelike arrangement of the Mexican pop song “Bésame Mucho,” by the avant-garde bassist and composer Scodanibbio. It’s a richly textured and haunting arrangement marked by a slow push-pull rhythm and deconstructed melody line that renders the song almost unrecognizable, though strikingly gorgeous. Other standouts include a spirited version of Golijov’s critically acclaimed Yiddishbbuk as well as four tunes from Scodanibbio’s remarkable Mexican Songbook. One of 2010’s best chamber-music recordings. —Greg Cahill

Together. New Century Chamber Orchestra, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, music director. (NSS Music)

In her second year as concertmaster of the conductorless New Century Chamber Orchestra, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg continues to bring vitality to this already accomplished and acclaimed ensemble. Her debut album with the NCCO has a Latin flavor, thanks to selections by tango master Astor Piazzolla and Brazilian musician and composer Clarice Assad. In her liner notes, Salerno-Sonnenberg states that her goal was to choose music with one common element: strong emotions. She has succeeded.

The CD kicks off with a world premiere recording of Impressions: Suite for Chamber Orchestra, an often playful Gershwinesque workout by longtime Salerno-Sonnenberg collaborator Assad. It is a clever, yet highly musical exercise that allows the talented members of the democratic NCCO to shine.

The concertmaster solos on a rendering of Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, which is most often recorded in tandem with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances showcases a pair of soloists: cellist Susan Babini and violist Anna Kruger. Salerno-Sonnenberg returns to solo again on the Jascha Heifetz arrangement of Gershwin’s “Bess You Is My Woman Now,” from Porgy & Bess. Other noteworthy solos are performed by bassist Anthony Manzo and cellist Michelle Djokic.

There is a warm, romantic feeling to much of this music, and despite the considerable technical demands of these bravura pieces, the music and those strong emotions are never overshadowed. —G.C.

Othmar Schoeck: Notturno. Rosamunde Quartet; Christian Gerhaher, baritone. (ECM)

When it comes to evoking music for the dark night of the soul, the exemplary Rosamunde Quartet—violinists Andreas Reiner and Diane Pascal, violist Helmut Nicolai, and cellist Anja Lechner—are the string-playing, art-music equivalent of the ancient Oneiroi, the mythological, and mischievous, Greek spirits who watched over dreams.

This five-movement work by the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957), penned between 1931–33, is built around ten poems, sung in German by baritone Christian Gerhaher. Each is inspired by an inability to sleep or an unsettling dream, and most evoke images of nature as well as love and marriage. The narrator frequently is plagued by dark visions of looming clouds, black birds, and, at one point, the disquieting Styxian vision of his own soul floating down a river.

The Rosamunde Quartet, which has released several underrated recordings on the ECM label since its debut in 1992 (Rosamunde cellist Anja Lechner also has recorded for the label), delivers a rich yet varied sound, whether the music calls for a dreamy edginess, bold declarative introduction, or the comforting ebb and flow of the last movement, Rasch und kräftig.

This is a match made in heaven.

While accomplished at Haydn and the old masters, the ensemble is best known for its recording of modern works by Valentin Silvestrov, Tigran Mansurian, and Thomas Larcher, among others. The Rosamundes’ concert series at the Munich Academy of Art combines chamber music, film, readings and panel discussions—it’s an art-music lover’s dream holiday. —G.C.

Editor's Choice

The cello takes center stage on Jaguar Songs (Cello Classics), a robust and engaging recording of contemporary works by 51-year-old Venezuelan composer Paul Desenne. The gifted cellist Nancy Green, who studied with Jacqueline du Pré and has won numerous awards, plays all the parts: for solo, three, and four cellos. Desenne has a knack for blending 18th-century Bach counterpoint and 21st-century cello technique. The title work is a four-movement suite for solo cello. Desenne explains that in Amazonian mythology, the jaguar represents blood and death. Whether these visceral pieces are sculpted as soundscapes or dances, Green supplies immediacy and power to these performances. —G.C.