Giovincello

1. Haydn: Cello concerto  Hob. VIIb.1 in C major : Moderato                                                        
2. Haydn: Cello concerto  Hob. VIIb.1 in C major : Adagio                                                            
3. Haydn: Cello concerto  Hob. VIIb.1 in C major : Allegro Molto                                                 
4. Vivaldi: Cello concerto  RV 419 in A minor : Allegro                                                                  
5. Vivaldi: Cello concerto  RV 419 in A minor : Andante                                                                
6. Vivaldi: Cello concerto  RV 419 in A minor : Allegro                                                                  
7. Platti: Concerto for cello, strings and basso continuo in D major : Allegro
8. Platti: Concerto for cello, strings and basso continuo in D major : Adagio
9. Platti: Concerto for cello, strings and basso continuo in D major : Allegro                              
10. Boccherini: Cello concerto G479 in D major : Allegro                                                                  
11. Boccherini: Cello concerto G479 in D major : Adagio                                                                  
12. Boccherini: Cello concerto G479 in D major : Allegro                                                                  
13. Graziani: Cello concerto in C major : Allegro moderato                                                 
14. Graziani: Cello concerto in C major : Larghetto grazioso con portamento                    
15. Graziani: Cello concerto in C major : Rondeau. Allegretto

Though the title Giovincello seems to make a specific musical reference, it is simply an affectionate Italian term meaning ‘young man’. The cellist Edgar Moreau is still only 21, but he is already recognised as an exceptional artist and, with his 2014 debut album Play, “he has already found his place in the great tradition of French cello-playing” (Diapason).  On his follow-up album Giovincello, accompanied by Riccardo Minasi and Il Pomo d’Oro, Moreau brings youthful energy and virtuosic thrills to Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1, 18th-century Italian works by Vivaldi, Boccherini and Platti, and a concerto by Baroque composer Carlo Graziani in its world-premiere recording.

Just this summer he performed in a series of five concerts at the prestigious Verbier Festival in Switzerland, where his colleagues included such distinguished fellow-cellists as Lynn Harrell, Mischa Maisky, Gautier Capuçon and Frans Helmerson, with whom Moreau studies at the celebrated Kronberg Academy near Frankfurt. In 2011, when he was just 17 he took Second Prize at Russia’s formidable Tchaikovsky Competition, having previously won the Young Soloist Prize in the 2009 Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris, and he has since performed with such distinguished musicians as Valery Gergiev, Gidon Kremer, András Schiff, Yuri Bashmet, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gustavo Dudamel, Renaud Capuçon, Nicholas Angelich, Frank Braley, Khatia Buniatishvili, Gérard Caussé and the Talich Quartet. 

His first recording for ERATO, released in 2014, was Play, a collection of short pieces – both virtuosic and lyrical. Writing in the magazine Diapason, Jean-Michel Molkhou said: “Edgar Moreau reveals a splendid, consistently glowing sonority … Warm, brilliant without being flashy, charming without being over-insistent, and generous with his seemingly effortless virtuosity, he can shift with equanimity from fireworks to touching simplicity … Edgar Moreau has already found his place in the great tradition of French cello-playing.”

The centrepiece of Giovincello is Haydn’s Cello Concerto No 1 in C major, which is joined by Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor RV 419 and three concertos by somewhat lesser-known Italian composers of the 18th century who all made careers outside their native country: Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) – an important figure in the history of chamber music – who spent much of his life in Spain; Giovanni Platti (1697-1763), who lived for more than 40 years in Würzburg in Bavaria, and Carlo Graziani (.-1787), a somewhat shadowy figure who became cello teacher to Frederick Wilhelm II of Prussia and whose Cello Concerto in C Major is given its world-premiere recording here.

Edgar Moreau is joined by the dynamic Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi and his ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, who also accompanied Joyce DiDonato in her bel canto recital Stella di Napoli and appear on the complete recording of Partenope, starring Karina Gauvin and Philippe Jaroussky, released on Erato in Autumn 2015.