Raphaela Gromes: Dvořák, Charnetskyi, Havrylets, Shevchenko, Silvestrov

The Strad Issue: October 2024

Description: A classic concerto is heard a fresh setting to moving effect

Musicians: Raphaela Gromes (cello) National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine/Volodymyr Sirenko

Works: Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor; works by Charnetskyi, Havrylets, Shevchenko and Silvestrov

Catalogue number: SONY CLASSICAL 19802825742

This is essentially a recording of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, but it was recorded after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and is clearly a response to it, including as it does several short Ukrainian works. The CD opens with Valentin Silvestrov’s Prayer for the Ukraine, written in 2014 and much played now. Raphaela Gromes performs it with deep feeling.

In Dvořák’s concerto her playing is forthright and brightly coloured from the outset; it is also closely recorded, leaving the orchestra rather in the background. She brings beautiful vocal phrasing to the second subject, and in the later orchestral tutti the trumpet fanfares shine through. Gromes relaxes in the semiquaver passagework under the wind melody but, as the energetic double-stopping arrives – played with élan – the lower winds are somewhat overpowered. Throughout the movement she combines tremendous energy and a feeling of strong emotional purpose.

Gromes brings an affecting lyricism to the long-arching melody at the start of the Adagio ma non troppo, with fine partnership from the orchestral wind, and after the quiet beauty of the horn section chorale the quasi cadenza and what follows have an appropriately personal, improvisatory quality. In the finale she takes her cue from Dvořák’s risoluto marking, with energetic playing always surging forward, taking the technical challenges in her swaggering stride. This is a forthright, stirring and sometimes moving account.

TIM HOMFRAY