Adele Bitter - Crossroads - Werke für Violoncello Solo (2022)

Crossroads – Crossroads where people meet. Crossroads at which composers were compelled to leave their personal, family, and linguistic homes. In the second half of the last century, these musicians experienced flight, expulsion, and exile, and fortunately found their “home” in their music and in their artistic environment. The works for violoncello recorded here describe a journey through various worlds, at the end of which one is probably certain to have arrived at home again – but enriched by insights into the interstices in which different musical cultures suddenly grow together – and possibly with a different feeling for the term “home”. During the past centuries, the violoncello as a solo instrument has increasingly been entrusted with virtuoso works of strong character. This instrument, like no other, can sing of the different emotional states, describe landscapes, lament hardships, and extend an invitation to dance. The works brought together on this CD bear witness to this.

A juxtaposition of several pioneering works of the cello repertoire of the second half of the twentieth century against the backdrop of the experience of expulsion and migration, ofquestions of identity and inclusion.

Comprehensive booklet with detailed historical information, biographies, image material,and commentaries about the works in German and English.