January 27, 2013

Moravec: Montserrat (Cello Concerto) (22:28) BMOP/Sound

Matt Haimovitz, cello; Boston Modern Orchestra Project / Gil Rose

Moravec’s cello concerto pays tribute to Pablo Casals and the mountaintop monastery that became like a second home to him. The album’s liner notes describe the concerto as growing “gradually, but inevitably, from its brief ascending gesture, which the composer has taken from a plainchant that closes the ‘Magnificat’ section of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. The spiritual quality of Montserrat has deep roots in these 17th-century origins, in the sound of chimes that ring as if from a distance, both temporal and geographical.”