18 DVOŘÁK | CELLO CONCERTO From a technical point of view, what are the challenges that need to be overcome to play this concerto, which is renowned for being so demanding? It is a veritable Mount Everest to conquer. Although it is very well composed for the instrument, it is also extremely difficult and requires an immense amount of preparation. The score abounds in technical passages with double stops that every cellist finds daunting! It is also a concerto that is complex in terms of balance, given that the orchestra is very luxuriant. This makes demands on the soloist to find a particularly resonant timbre. For this recording, however, we allowed ourselves subtleties that would not have been conceivable in concert, where it is essential to be heard uniformly even at the very back row of the concert hall. Here, thanks to the microphones, we were able to play more on finesse and search for new colours, while also developing another important facet of this work, namely its narrative dimension: with his long phrases, Dvořák seems to invite us to tell a story. It is therefore essential not to lose the purity of the musical line, but rather to favour a certain fluidity. In the end, we experimented a great deal with David Reiland and the musicians to arrive at what I would call Dvořák à la française: in any case, an artistic proposition capable of casting new light on this much-celebrated work.
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