FELIX MENDELSSOHN:
Complete works for cello and pianoforte
Sergei Istomin, cello
Viviana Sofronitsky, pianoforte
Passacaille
***½
A "song without words" asks more, not less, of its executor, who must reinvent the silences between words, the absent consonants, commas and question marks: It is the opposite of an excuse for a smooth, unhindered line. Cellist Sergei Istomin's playing is as eloquent as if he were sculpting out the syllables of a hidden text, not only in his ardent interpretation of the Song Without Words, Op. 109, but in the cello sonatas too. These blaze with clarity and urgency, not the least for pianist Viviana Sofronitsky's effervescent performance, on a period instrument remarkable for "special effects" in timbre no modern piano can match.