Steven Isserlis and the Concerto Budapest

MESSIAEN Hymne au Saint-Sacrement
SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, op. 33
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BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107

Featuring: Steven Isserlis cello
Conductor: András Keller

“My mother played piano, as did my oldest sister, although she wanted to play the viola, my middle sister and my father played violin, in other words, we lacked a cellist.” This is how in an interview Steven Isserlis dryly reflected on the obvious course of his choice of career and instrument. He went on to say: “Chamber music was our elementary school.” Known also for his music writing, the British instrumentalist appears in two concerts at the invitation of András Keller, first playing Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor; one of the benchmark contemporary recordings of the concerto written in 1872 also preserves an Isserlis solo. “One day I came home and was very sad; I said to myself: the master cannot live much longer; and suddenly the C-sharp minor Adagio came to me.” This is how Anton Bruckner remembered the birth of the most famous part of his Symphony No. 7; thus, the Adagio is associated with the impending death of his much-admired Wagner. Luckily for posterity, the opening number of this fascinating concert, Hymne au Saint-Sacrement, came to Messiaen’s mind not once but twice, because the work composed in 1932 was lost during World War II and the composer later reconstructed it from memory.