On her album Saint-Sans & Lalo: Cello Concertos, Sol Gabetta presents three key works from the Romantic concert repertoire: Together with the French orchestra Les Sicles, which plays on period instruments, the cellist performs Camille Saint-Sanss two cello concertos as well as douard Lalos Cello Concerto in D minor.
By combining a historically informed orchestral sound with her own distinctive musical style, Sol Gabetta explores the contrasting sonic worlds of these works. Saint-Sans First Cello Concerto and Lalos concerto, both composed within a few years of each other, place the orchestra firmly at the center and create a lively dialogue between the soloist and the ensemble. In contrast, Saint-Sans Second Cello Concertocomposed some three decades laterpresents itself as a highly virtuosic, structurally expansive work that demands extraordinary technical and expressive capabilities from the soloist.
Sol Gabetta, known for her expressiveness and interpretive clarity, shapes each of these works with a keen sense of dramaturgy and timbre. She emphasizes their lyrical qualities while simultaneously bringing out the individual characters of the compositions. The collaboration with Les Sicles lends the recording an additional dimension: the orchestras sound reflects the stylistic aesthetics of the late 19th century while remaining immediate and rich in color.