An album that promises much but doesn’t quite deliver
The Strad Issue: February 2026
Description: An album that promises much but doesn’t quite deliver
Musicians: Gautier Capuçon (cello) Jérôme Ducros, Frank Braley, Olivia Belli (pianos), Capucelli, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Abel Selaocoe (cellos), Sarah Rebecca (vocals)
Works: Music by Amar, Barnes, Bello, Blache, Canitrot, Dessner, Dunckel, Einaudi, Foley, Hisaishi, Mazzoli, Montero, Muhly, Richter, Selaocoe and Witter-Johnson
Catalogue number: ERATO 5021732727374
There’s no denying the praiseworthiness of Gautier Capuçon’s environmentally themed new music project: to commission 16 contemporary musicians to write him short pieces based around humanity’s relationship with nature. It’s described by Capuçon himself as ‘a song of warning, a hymn to this threatened beauty, a prayer for future generations’. And though his own playing is unwaveringly rich, lyrical and often movingly responsive to the musical and emotional demands, the collection as a whole is far more mixed in its persuasiveness.
Too many pieces seem to occupy a wistful, gently atmospheric, Philip Glass-style sound world of rippling arpeggios and poignantly shifting tonal harmonies, so that the grittier, more complex and more emotionally intense The Usual Illusion by Missy Mazzoli, for example, comes as a welcome relief. Likewise, the up-tempo jazziness of Jasmine Barnes’s soulful Life in Sunshine brings a gratifying rhythmic bite – as well as showcasing the richness and versatility of Capuçon’s all-cello Capucelli ensemble – and the retro nostalgia of Wake by Jean-Benoît Dunckel (half of French pop duo Air) offers a nicely self-aware sentimentality.
It was perhaps a mistake, too, to allow musicians such a generous presence in their own tracks, so that Capuçon feels somewhat relegated to the background in the sophisticated jazz of Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s Forever Home and in French megastar DJ Michael Canitrot’s club anthem Never Say Never.
It’s a concept with enormous promise, but without more grit, definition and substance (not to say anger and determination to supplement its pensive resignation), Gaïa feels like something of a missed opportunity.
DAVID KETTLE
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