Children’s CELLO


“Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough open with a beginners' open-string solo (Ludwig Lebell's Berceuse orientale) and continue with increasingly challenging material that culminates in Gaspar Cassadó's bravura Requiebros. The contemporary selections are especially satisfying. Gavin Bryars's With Miriam by the River pays homage to the composer's cello-playing mother in music of quiet, lyrical intensity. Howard Blake's Archangel's Lullaby, written to celebrate the birth of Isserlis's son Gabriel, has a Fauré-like sensibility... Hough's Angelic Song (yet another gift to Gabriel Isserlis) is a ravishingly simple meditation. 



Isserlis père's own The Haunted House may not merit repeated hearings but its silliness is sure to provide a chuckle or two, aided by Simon Callow's sly narration, and the cello's role a sound-effects machine could motivate many youngsters to pick up instrument. Delightful.” --Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

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