Benjamin Britten - Britten: Suites For Solo Cello

Facts Britten's meeting with Mstislav Rostropovich in 1960 was a watershed, the great Russian cellist becoming the primary collaborator of his later years and inspiring a whole series of masterworks. Among them are these three suites for solo cello, written as a conscious homage to those of Bach (there were originally to have been six). Britten scholar Paul Kildea, author of the lucid and perceptive booklet essay, sees the first as a coda to the War Requiem, the second as a snapshot of a lifetime of musical obsessions, and the third as both reaching back to much earlier works and suffused with Russian melody. The young virtuoso Philip Higham, one of the only British cellists in generations to have won top prizes at three major international competitions, brings both vigor and a deep intelligence to this remarkable music.