Rachmaninov · Elégie

If you've been following the career of cellist Mischa Maisky, you've no doubt already encountered his previous recordings of "songs without words," his discs featuring songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn arranged for cello and piano. This 2007 disc of works by Russian composer Sergey Rachmaninov called Elégie is a continuation of Maisky's 2005 disc Vocalise, which included works by several Russian composers, including Rachmaninov. Here, Maisky includes two works originally for cello and piano – the massive four-movement "Sonata in G minor, Op. 19," and the slight but exceedingly sensuous "Oriental Danse, Op. 2/2" – three arrangements of works for solo piano for cello and piano – the "Elégie" and "Mélodie" from Opus 3 and the "Prélude in G major" from Opus 23 – and five song transcriptions – "Twilight," "How Everyone Loves Thee," "How My Heart Aches," "In the Silence of the Night," and "Night Is Mournful."

As before in this series, the interest isn't so much in the repertoire or even in the transcriptions as it is in Maisky's performances. Granted, Maisky is somewhat handicapped by having already used three of the composer's best-known songs on the earlier disc, though he has surely compensated here by including the composer's best work in the cello and piano medium plus more superb song transcriptions on this disc. With the playing field leveled, this disc once again stands or falls on Maisky's performance. It goes without saying his technique is strong, supple, and essentially flawless, and that as always but even more so as he matures, Maisky's tone is big, thick, and juicy, with a smooth legato that treats every line as a vocalise.

Above all, what distinguishes Maisky's performances are their passion. Whatever the emotion to be expressed – the yearning of "How My Heart Aches" or the melancholy of "Elégie" – Maisky goes at it molto appassionato. This is by no means a bad thing in this repertoire: a repressed Rachmaninov is a musical oxymoron. With immense gusto and a bravura technique, Maisky hurls himself into the role of the tragic cello soloist of the "G minor Sonata," and his dramatic gestures and heightened expressivity are enormously compelling. And so it proves with all Maisky's performances here that continue not only the concept but the excellence of earlier discs in this series. Joined here by Martha Argerich protégée Sergio Tiempo, who provides the soloist with the muscular support he needs, and captured in especially lush digital sound by Deutsche Grammophon, Elégie will please fans of the cellist and the composer. James Leonard, All Music Guide