Blackbirds (Music from the 1960s) – Nicolas Altstaedt

Nicolas Altstaedt’s starting point for this recording was the magnificent Second Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969): “On reading through the work for the first time, I immediately thought: why is this never played? Astonishing, how with just a few notes she can make a whole world appear.”

Pianist and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev conducts the Swedish Radio Orchestra and accompanies his friend in a work composed two years earlier: Benjamin Britten’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, as well as a work by Morton Feldman from 1960, Durations II…

Next comes a sonata by Sándor Veress, one of Altstaedt’s favourite composers, this time for solo cello: composed in 1967, this landmark work in the solo cello repertoire completes this overview of music from the 1960s, which concludes with a live recording of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s famous Blackbird, recorded with Thomas Dunford on lute and vocals, in a church in Portugal as the bells strike midnight.