On Friday, September 20th the Halifax based Leaf Music Label released a fabulous recording that features two grand works for cello and piano. Called Dialogues the recording features Rachmaninov’s lyrical and monumental cello sonata, and Rebecca Clarke’s impressionistic and gorgeous viola sonata which she herself arranged for cello.
The cellist on the CD is the Canadian cellist Noémie Raymond and the pianist is Zhenni Li-Cohen.
For those unfamiliar with Noémie Raymond, she now enjoys a diversified Intenational career where she has performed both as a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed at such venues as the Royal Allbert Hall, and the International de Musica de Camera in Lima, Peru. She has performed alongside such artists as Midori and Pinkas Zukerman. She holds a Doctorate in performance and literature from The Eastman School and is a cello chamber music mentor for the Heifetz Internationmal Music Institute.
Zhenni Li-Cohen is a graduate of the Julliard School. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at such venues as Carnegie Hall, The Kimmel Performing Arts Centre in Philadelphia, and the Berlin Philharmonie. In May of 2023 she was named to the piano faculty of the University of Alberta.
Both compositions on the CD highlight the friendship and partnership of these two marvelous musicians. Raymond and Li-Cohen met while teaching and performing together at the Heifetz International Institute in 2018, and since then they have been performing together as a duo. “It’s an all-around wonderful experience to play music with Zhenni who is an amazing pianist and a dear friend,” says Raymond.
Both compositions on the disc ask a lot of the players, and there is very much a dialogue between cello and piano. In rehearsals leading up to the recording session Li-Cohen and Raymond took apart the Rachmaninov and Rebecca Clarke Sonatas to ensure that the conversation could be heard in the music; phrasing was exactly right, and transitions were properly executed. As Li-Cohen says plainly, “It’s was never-ending discoveries”
Raymond makes the argument that one of the big throughlines of both sonatas is the idea of light winning out over the darkness. Both sonatas, she argues, make use of this.
The Rachmaninov sonata has a melancholic, beautifully lyrical, dark, and tumultuous quality to it in the first three movements but then the sun comes out in the final movement. As Raymond describes it, “The fourth movement is so brilliant...it’s in a major key all over... we [the listener] kind of went through this whole psychological journey and we end up happy. Which is kind of what Rachmaninov went through as well. Rachmaninov went through three years of serious depression and this sonata is one of the first pieces that he wrote after that period. I think the sonata represents this time in his life when he came over his depression and started writing again.”
The Rebecca Clarke sonata shows the influence of both Vaughan Williams and Debussy, and like the Rachmaninov sonata there is a wonderful sense of lyrism in it. The light comes out in the final movement where there is a sudden change of tempo, and the piano is given all sorts of pyrotechnics. As Li-Cohen says, “This whole transition is so well written, and Noémie has this underlying pedal point, that goes from nothing to sextuplets...it creates so much motion, it is absolutely glorious... this whole transition.”
Glorious is also a word that could be used to describe this recording. Noémie Raymond’s sound is warm, rich, and expressive, with flawless intonation and a clear sense of melodic direction. Paired with Li-Cohen's virtuosity and elegant touch at the keyboard; the two throughout the disc exchange musical ideas perfectly. They take the listener on a very satisfying journey via the sound worlds of Rachmaninov and Rebecca Clarke.
A special shout out should also be made to the production staff at Leaf. The recording is not only beautifully played, but also sonically satisfying as well. The recording was done in March of this year (2024) at Domaine Forget in Charlevoix, Quebec. Raymond and Li-Cohen had three days in the hall there to record this music in collaboration with the recording engineers at Leaf Music. As Raymond explains, “The person who actually did the recording was René Laflamme who is well known in the audiophile world and then Nathan from Leaf did the editing and mastering, so it was really a team effort.”
Thankfully, the team was able to capture this marvelous collaborative conversation. Dialogues is a disc that needs to be heard!