Mar. 26: Pablo Ferrández Releases Debut Album - Reflections - on Sony Classical

[Note: Downloads and CDs available to press upon request.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts: Maggie Stapleton, Jensen Artists
646.536.7864 x2 | maggie@jensenartists.com

Sony Music Masterworks: Larissa Slezak / Jamie Bertel
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Pablo Ferrández
Releases Debut Album Reflections on Sony Classical on March 26, 2021

First Single Available Now: Rachmaninoff’s Zdes' khorosho (How Fair This Spot)
Listen Here: https://pabloferrandez.lnk.to/reflectionsPR

One of the most charismatic and exciting talents of his generation, Tchaikovsky Prize-winning Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrández has been hailed across the globe for his “pop-idol magnetism, superb technique and exhilarating musicality” (LA Times), as a performer who “has everything: technique, mettle, spirit … and charm” (El País).  He has quickly built a reputation as a performer both hugely admired by fellow musicians, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gidon Kremer among them and loved by audiences, also on social media, where Ferrández’s charm and immediacy of his performances and personality reaches an audience of millions.

Ferrández’s debut album on Sony Classical, Reflections, provides a perfect introduction to this exceptional artist: With a romantic spirit, it reflects his musical roots and unexpected parallels in the music of Russia and Spain at the start of the 20th century. With Rachmaninoff and his Spanish contemporaries Casals, Granados and De Falla it presents an evocative mixture of nostalgia, melodic warmth including Rachmaninoff’s ardently melodic Cello Sonata and his haunting Vocalise, De Falla’s touching lullaby Nana and Granados’ “Oriental” from his Danzas españolas.

Pablo Ferrández was born into a musical family in 1991 and christened after Pablo “Pau” Casals – the iconic cellist and one of the most influential classical musicians Spain has ever produced. He has always felt an affinity with Russia, since he started his studies, at age 13, with the legendary Natalia Shakhovskaya (1925–2017), a former pupil of Rostropovich, at the Reina Sofia Music School in his native Madrid. “She was an incredible musician and human being,” he recalls, “and she made me love and understand the language of Russian music.”

Reflections therefore represents both the music of Ferrández homeland and the music of the country that would become so important to him: “I wanted to record pieces I can see myself in, that reflect something of me and my roots. It contains some of the most beautiful and touching music I know.” Such a personal project needed a well-chosen partner, and Ferrández found the ideal pia­nist in Denis Kozhukhin. Their friendship dates back to their studies at the Reina Sofía Music School. Central to the programme is Rachmaninoff’s ardently melodic Cello Sonata, composed in 1901.

The discovery that Casals and Rachmaninoff had performed the sonata together inspired Ferrández to build his programme to highlight further musical parallels and reflections between Spain and Russia. The album features cello and piano arrangements of three shorter Rachmaninoff works (including the haunting Vocalise), plus favourite shorter works by De Falla and Granados, two key figures of Spanish music in the early 20th century, and contemporaries of Rachmaninoff and Casals. Ferrández pays tribute to his great musical predecessor with the final track of the album: Casals’s famous arrangement of the Catalan Christmas song, "El cant dels ocells" (The Song of the Birds).

Ferrández has performed in the world’s major concert halls with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach and Daniele Gatti, and has appeared in chamber concerts with artists of the stature of Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Yuja Wang and Khatia Buniatishvili. Orchestras with which he has worked include the London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic (at the Hollywood Bowl), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic and the Rotterdam Philharmonic.

TRACKLIST

Sergei Rachmaninoff 1873–1943
1           “How Fair This Spot!”
              No. 7 from 12 Romances op. 21
              Moderato

Manuel De Falla 1876–1946
2            Nana     
              Lullaby
              No. 2 from Suite populaire espagnole
              after No. 5 from Siete Canciones populares Españolas
              Calmo e sostenuto
              Arrangement: Maurice Maréchal

Sergei Rachmaninoff
3            Élégie   
              No. 1 from Morceaux de fantaisie op. 3
              Moderato
              Arrangement: A. Vlasov   

Sergei Rachmaninoff
              Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor op. 19
              g-Moll · en sol menor

4                             I               Lento – Allegro moderato
5                             II              Allegro scherzando           
6                             III             Andante
7                             IV            Allegro mosso
               
8            Melody  No. 9 from 12 Romances op. 21
              Non allegro 

Manuel De Falla
9            Asturiana             
              No. 5 from Suite populaire espagnole
              After No. 3 from Siete Canciones populares Españolas
              Andante tranquillo
              Arrangement: Maurice Maréchal 

Sergei Rachmaninoff
10          Vocalise
              No. 14 from 12 Romances op. 34
              Lentamente. Molto cantabile
              Arrangement: Shin-Itchiro Yokoyama

              Enrique Granados 1867–1916
11          Orientale              
              No. 2 from Danzas españolas op. 37
              Andante – Più mosso ed agitato – Tempo I
              Arrangement: Gregor Piatigorsky

Traditional
12          El cant dels ocells              
              The Song of the Birds
              Arrangement: Pablo Casals

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