Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Nothing that emerges from Manfred Eicher’s ECM stable is likely to lack a considered musical context, and true to form cellist Thomas Demenga’s programme is no mere string of encores. The chain of musical events always seems to follow some sort of purpose, be it for contrast or for continuity, the catchy opening solo, which ends on pizzicato harmonics, stopping short before Demenga and accordionist Teodor Anzellotti lean together for a couple of Bach chorales, one slow, the other sporting a swift and elegant accompaniment.

Picking up the tempo allows for an easy hop from Bach to Cassadó and a switch from Anzellotti’s sonorous wheezing to Thomas Larcher’s sassy piano-playing. Good fun this, but a short-lived spree before Chopin takes over with Piatigorsky’s sensitive transcription of the (early) C sharp minor Nocturne. Here Demenga’s cello affects an expressive and gentle high baritone, nicely inflected with evenly deployed double-stops. Fauré’s Romance is an altogether darker, more restless piece and how ingenious to follow its rarefied atmosphere with Webern, first the serial Drei kleine Stücke, then the Straussian early Zwei Stücke. A more conventional soul would have put the early Webern pieces first, but not Demenga – and rightly so.

Another well planned sequence has Demenga’s own version of Chopin’s famous E flat Nocturne followed by Liszt’s La lugubre gondola (very passionately played), then a piece of his own devising “after Berg and Bach”, and more Bach, again with Anzellotti. The programme closes with two uproarious minutes’ worth of New York Honk, a bit like rushing across a busy road with your head still in the clouds, not surprising given everything that we’ve been listening to! I enjoyed it all hugely.

Review by Rob Cowan, Gramophone.co.uk

Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga here comes up with an unusual angle on the contemporary attempt to make the instrumental a personal statement rather than a mere demonstration of mastery: he plays a program of encores. Of course, many famed instrumental performers have released albums of encores, but there's never been one like this before. Demenga explores the concept of the encore itself, positing it as the only segment of the traditional recital in which the performer could display his or her own personality – in the words of the rather verbose notes of Anselm Cybinski, could "display the wandering minstrel who slumbers unacknowledged even in the most cerebral of musical exegetes." Thus Demenga offers examples of various types of encores. There is the virtuoso exotic encore, often coming from a composer's own ethnic tradition; these are represented here by the title work by Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze and by the Danse du diable vert of Gaspar Cassadò. There is the Romantic encore with a beautiful tune, exemplified here by works of Chopin and Fauré. There are intellectual works (Webern, late Liszt), and Bach chorales, presented here in delightful arrangements with accordion by Demenga himself. And there are pieces composed by the player – which, as Demenga points out, fell out of favor as modernism tightened its icy grip on music. Demenga's own works are great crowd-pleasers. Start your sampling with his New York Honk, the last work on the program: the cello plays an energetic figure that seems to be interrupted by city traffic noises.

Having sorted out all these strands, Demenga weaves them together once again in a program that makes sense harmonically and in terms of timing – he even varies the lengths of the pauses between tracks as he manipulates its ebb and flow. What is intended, again in Cybinski's words, is "a 'composed' continuum in which seemingly heterogeneous items coalesce, almost nonchalantly exploding ancient misgivings against suites of miniatures." The music reminds you that it's fun when it seems to be getting too serious, and it tells you to think about it when it starts to seem lightweight. It all adds up to a virtuoso performance in the best sense of the word – in the mind as well as the fingers – and one that would surely attract audiences if offered in tour in support of the recording.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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Thomas Demenga, Thomas Larcher, Teodoro Anzellotti - Chonguri (2006)

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