Sonatas for Cello & Piano

Chopin - Rachmaninoff
Sonatas for Cello & Piano
Marko Ylönen's cello
Arto Satukangas piano
Chopin and Rachmaninoff sonatas for cello and piano
Marko Ylönen and Arto Satukangka's wonderful duo sonata disc features Frédéric Chopin's (1810-1849) Sonata for piano and cello in G minor, Op. 65 and Sergei Rachmaninov's (1873-1943) Sonata for cello and piano in G minor, Op. 19 and as the actual Pearl Vokaliisi no. 14 in E minor op. 34.
Antti Häyrynen writes about the album's works as follows:
"Chopin's cello sonata is dedicated to his cellist friend Auguste Franchomme, and perhaps a long friendship - which had already produced a couple of other cello-piano works - obliged him to complete the heavy task. The private premiere of the work with Franchomme was the composer's last concert performance in France.
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 was the last of Rachmaninoff's chamber works, although it does not rank among the composer's late works. The cello in itself is a natural interpreter of Slavic longing and melancholy, which Rachmaninov aspired to even at his brightest. It is often said that the instruments in the duo sonata are balanced: in this sonata, the piano part does not lag a centimeter behind the cello part in its splendor. Rachmaninov premiered the sonata with his friend Andrei Brandukov, but his most memorable interpretation is considered to be a charity concert with cellist Pablo Casals in 1919.
Rachmaninov's Vokaliisi was completed in 1915, but three years later it became a metaphor for the composer's wordless homesickness. A silent and wordless tune does not need words to support it, even in the form of a presentation: nostalgia and longing for some distant and fading happiness has become a permanent state of being in this song."
Marko Ylönen has performed as a soloist and chamber musician across Finland, several European countries, the USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to classical repertoire, Ylönen has also performed contemporary music. He has played several premieres of Finnish compositions, most recently Jouni Kaipainen's Cello Concerto in March 2003. Ylönen started as a professor of chamber music at the Sibelius Academy in the fall of 2009 and has been chosen as the artistic director of the Korsholma Music Festival for 2010.
Arto Satukangas attracted extraordinary attention after winning 1st prize at the age of 17 at the Maj Lind piano competition in Helsinki in 1979. The competition win launched Satukanga's career, which has brought him to the international forefront of Finnish pianists. His US debut was at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 1994, where he returned with success in 2008. On this visit to New York, he was selected as a Steinway Artist. The duo collaboration with cello artist Marko Ylönen has been going on for years.