ALBUMBrahms: Cello Sonatas 1 & 2Steven Isserlis & Stephen Hough
ALBUMFranck & Rachmaninoff: Cello Sonatas etc.Steven Isserlis & Stephen Hough
ALBUMR.Strauss: Don Quixote - Complete Works for VioloncelloSteven Isserlis, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Lorin Maazel
ALBUMSaint-Saëns: Cello ConcertoSteven Isserlis
ALBUMHaydn: Cello Concertos in C & DSteven Isserlis, Chamber Orchestra of Europe & Sir Roger Norrington
ALBUMHaydn: Cello Concertos, Symphony No. 13, Sinfonia ConcertanteSteven Isserlis & Chamber Orchestra of Europe
ALBUMMessiaen: Quatuor pour le fin du temps - Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Olli Mustonen & Michael Collins
ALBUMEternal Memory (Cello Music of John Tavener)Steven Isserlis
ALBUMFauré: Complete Cello WorksSteven Isserlis
ALBUMCello Concerto No. 1., Etc.Steven Isserlis
ALBUMTavener: The Protecting Veil & Thrinos - Britten: Cello Suite No. 3Steven Isserlis, Gennady Rozhdestvensky & London Symphony Orchestra
ALBUMJohn Tavener: The Protecting VeilGennady Rozhdestvensky, London Symphony Orchestra & Steven Isserlis
ALBUMChausson: Concert for Piano, Violin & String Quartet - Ravel: Piano TrioJoshua Bell, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Steven Isserlis & Takács Quartet
ALBUMBrahms-Schumann-Fruhling: Clarinet TriosSteven Isserlis, Michael Collins & Stephen Hough
ALBUMTchaikovsky: Rococo Variations, Andante cantabile, Pezzo capriccioso & Nocturne - Cello Works by Glazunov, Cui & Rimsky-KorsakovSteven Isserlis, John Eliot Gardiner & Chamber Orchestra of Europe
A sinewy yet expressive lyricism characterises the playing of British cellist Steven Isserlis. His sound partly derives from his use of gut rather than metal strings: Isserlis makes up for their relatively reticent character with Zen-like focus on tone and the expressive line of the music he performs.
Born in London in 1958, Isserlis studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. By his own account, however, he was inspired above all by recordings of the Russian cellist Daniil Shafran, as well as those of Pablo Casals whose playing of Schumann inspired Isserlis’ lifelong love of that composer.
The Protecting Veil, a concerto Isserlis commissioned from the English composer John Tavener and premiered at the 1989 BBC Proms, catapulted him to widespread fame, sealed by his subsequent 1992 recording of that work. He also at this time formed a piano trio with two very different musicians—the impetuous pianist Olli Mustonen, and the glowingly lyrical violinist Joshua Bell—with whom he successfully toured and recorded. He has also recorded several times with the pianist Stephen Hough.
Isserlis’ repertoire and his enthusiasms are notably wide, encompassing the Cello Suites of both J.S. Bach and Britten as well as concertos by C.P.E. Bach and Haydn; yet he has a particular fondness for Russian repertoire, and has recorded such neglected works as Kabalevsky’s Cello Concerto No. 2 and the original version of Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, of which he made the first complete recording in 2013.
Hometown
London, England
Genre
Classical
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