Rob Cowan’s “Replay” column in the February issue of Gramophone Magazine features two lovely reviews for releases from Parnassus and Alto:
“Another master in Dvorak was the cellist Emanuel Feuermann, well known for his recordings of the Concerto (two captured live, one set down in the studio), and two shorter works. Silent Woods, Op 68, and the Rondo in G minor, Op 94 (Feuermann here accompanied by the National Orchestra Association under Leon Barzin), the latter also available with piano as a video link (where a virtually expressionless Feuermann plies a lightning use of the bow and phenomenal lett-hand stretches). As to his tone. Casals might score equally for personality but for sheer tonal beauty, emotive immediacy and as a seductive proponent of the bow, no one compares with Feuermann. Parnassus’s latest transters of these matchless performances are admirably smooth and the same CD also includes another Feuermann mainstay, Bloch’s Schelomo again under Barzin and soloisticallv at least a fair match for his Philadelphia version with Stokowski conducting.… A must for all cellists and cello lovers.”
—Rob Cowan, Gramophone
“Bloch’s Schelomo rates alongside his violin-and-piano suite Baal Shem as his most popular work. Zara Nelsova (born Sara Katznelson in Winnipeg) was among Schelomo’s most devoted and impassioned exponents (Bloch thought she was his music and called her ‘Madame Schelomo’), having recorded it at least three times, twice with the LPO (under the composer himself. then with Ernest Ansermet conducting) and latterly this impressive stereo recording from 1967 with the Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel, whose handling of the lavishly ornate orchestral score rivals Stokowski (with cellists Emanuel Feuermann and George Neikrug) in its impact. It’s a vivid reading on all counts and shares disc space on a recent Alto reissue with an impressive 1993 recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under James Sedares of the Trois Poèmes juifs (1913), dedicated to the memory of Bloch’s father, especially apposite in the closing ‘Funeral Procession’… If you fancy tipping a toe into Blochian waters, then this is the ideal place to start.”
—Rob Cowan, Gramophone
