Recitals devoted to unaccompanied 20th-century cello repertoire are occuring with increasing frequency on CD. In a less competitive market, the virtues of Wen-Sinn Yang’s release Cello XX would unreservedly hold their own. His big, warm tone, for instance, adds attractive heft to the Hindemith Sonata’s declamatory broken chords and the wispy melodic germs of Schnittke’s Klingende Buchstaben. Similarly, the pizzicato writing throughout Toshiro Mayuzumi’s Bunraku sounds attractively rounded and roomy. Comparison shopping, however, reveals Yang’s darting passages in the Dutilleux Strophes to be less incisive and technically spot-on than Emmanuelle Bertrand’s more dynamic performance. Her stricter adherence to George Crumb’s notated rhythms in the variations movement of his Sonata results in more lilt and continuity than Yang’s softer-grained playing. In Penderecki’s Per Slava, Yang doesn’t quite match the suave bow arm and breathtaking textural diversity Patrick O’Byrne achieves on his CPO recording, although Yang nicely fills out the opening section’s long, lyrical phrases. Intonation-wise, Yang yields to Wolfgang Boettcher’s top-to-bottom security (and stronger interpretive profile) in both the aforementioned Hindemith Sonata and Dallapiccola’s Ciaconna, Intermezzo e Adagio, but fares better in Britten’s brief tribute to Paul Sacher (Tema “SACHER”). A fine program, overall, but if you just want one mixed contemporary cello music disc, get either Boettcher’s on Nimbus or Bertrand’s on Harmonia Mundi.
