Rococo

Edgar Moreau excels as both a soloist and a chamber musician, as the two main works on this album make clear: Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, performed with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Michael Sanderling, and Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G minor, for which Moreau is joined by pianist David Kadouch, his regular duo partner. Completing the programme are arrangements and transcriptions of six shorter ‘encore’ pieces by composers from Central and Eastern Europe – Dvořák, Rachmaninov, Chopin and Shostakovich. 

There is a special place in Moreau’s heart for the Rococo Variations, since the work served to launch his international career as his showpiece in the finals of the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In 2022, he released Transmission, another recording with the Lucerne orchestra and Michael Sanderling, causing BBC Music Magazine to write of his “magnificent command”, and Gramophone to enthuse that “His tone is beautiful, his phrasing rapt.” When he and Kadouch collaborated on an album including Poulenc’s cello sonata, The Strad wrote: “Moreau and Kadouch get right to the heart of the piece, playing with elegance and an infectious passion.”