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Masterclass: Debussy Cello Sonata, second and third movements

2023-07-12T09:01:00

Demenga cr Izmael Lorenzo 3

Cellist Thomas Demenga reflects on the importance of restraint next to the extremes of expressive detail to be brought out in this masterpiece

At the point when I first studied this piece, it was still considered modern music, having only been written 55 years earlier in 1915. But it’s amazing to think of the contrast in style between this and Webern’s Three Little Pieces op.11, or the Cello Sonata, both written a year earlier. And just over ten years before that, Rachmaninoff was writing his Cello Sonata based firmly in the Romantic style, with absolutely no experimental cello techniques…

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