If you’ve a hankering for light, airy, and Fauré-like Brahms cello sonatas, check out this release. Cellist Yegor Dyachkov and pianist Jean Saulnier make beautiful, almost disembodied sounds gliding into the E minor sonata Allegretto’s trio, as if to say “bet you can’t play softer than we can!” Similarly, the F major first movement’s thick tremolos and melodic oratory are considerably slimmed down from what we usually hear in this music. The players allow themselves much interpretive leeway, such as their speeding up of the E minor first movement’s second subject, along with fanciful dynamic shifts and tapered phrases that are just a bit too clever for their own good.
Dyachkov’s svelte, violin-like tone and discrete vibrato are akin to other “Brahms Lite” cellists such as Pieter Wispelwey or Anner Bylsma. Yet compare Dyachkov’s relatively timid pizzicatos that begin the F minor’s slow movement with the robust and tonally well-defined playing of Rostropovich or Starker and you’ll sense what’s missing. Similarly, Dyachkov’s admirably controlled Op. 78 slow movement yields to Yo-Yo Ma’s seasoned eloquence. The engineering, though, is state of the art. I recommend this disc to those who prefer Brahms with a summer tan rather than the “autumnal glow” that critics so fondly and incessantly cite.
