The music on the other side, by two recent Swiss-born composers, Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) and Frank Martin (1890-1974), makes this disk welcome. Bloch's oeuvre contains about a dozen works of avowedly Jewish flavor, the most famous being the Schelomo rhapsody for cello and orchestra (1915). The last of the Jewish works was a set of five Pieces Hebraiques (1951), for viola and piano, three of which Bloch orchestrated the next year under the title Suite Hebraique. The Thompson disk is the only current recording with the revised scoring. Though not from Bloch's top drawer, the work still stands solid and serious; and Thompson gives it a full-throated expressiveness.
The underappreciated Martin is represented by his Sonata da Chiesa (1938) for viola d'amore and organ. The composer authorized the use of a flute instead of viola, and later scored the keyboard part for string orchestra. A Musical Heritage recording of the flute-and-organ option features Jean-Pierre Rampal and Marie-Claire Alain. But the flute cannot execute the double stops and many other subtleties possible on the viola d'amore, a little-used instrument with more strings than the normal viola. In this piece Martin fused serial and tonal procedures skillfully, and Thompson's interpretation particularly emphasizes the work's pain.
On a disk entitled "Computer Generations," Thompson performs a work expressly written for him, Synapse for Viola and Computer (1976) by Barry Vercoe (b. 1937), who established M.I.T.'s electronic music studio nine years ago. Thompson brings a needed touch of humanity to a cerebral work that, though serially organized, lacks sufficient aural unity.
Finally, the cello has been the means of livelihood for a number of Black musicians, including Leonard Jeter (1881-1970); Donald White (b. 1925), a long-time member of the Cleveland Symphony; and Earl Madison (b. 1945), who joined the Pittsburgh Symphony's cello section at 19. We shall doubtless hear more of Ronald Lipscomb, who like Marcus Thompson made a strong impression at the recent Washington competition.
For several decades the best-known Black cellist, however, has been Kermit Moore (b. 1929), an active concertizer throughout the country as well as in Europe, Africa and the Far East. His recent recording contains the New England Suite by Vally Weigl (b. 1894), widow of the composer Karl Weigl. Moore collaborates here with clarinettist Stanley Drucker and pianist Ilse Sass in a work of modest charm, consisting of "Vermont Nocturne," "Maine Interlude," "Berkshire Pastorale," and "Connecticut Country Fair" (better luck next time, Rhode Island). Moore plays almost perfectly, though the work makes no inordinate demands on its performers.
In the 1970s the cello world lost three of its supreme practitioners--two to death (Pablo Casals and Gregor Piatigorsky) and one to incapacitating multiple sclerosis (Jacqueline DuPre). At the same time two superb young artists came to the fore: Nathaniel Rosen (b. 1948), who two years ago won the Gold Medal at the international cello competition in Moscow; and Eugene Moye (b. 1951).
As a Black child of eight, Moye immediately showed an aptitude for the cello, and his subsequent training was largely financed by the Epstein Memorial Foundation. In the early seventies, the U.S. State Department chose young Moye to tour the Caribbean, South America, and Africa (he is the only Black cellist ever to perform in South Africa, where he insisted on nonsegregated audiences).
In 1977 he captured attention at home by playing the David Baker cello concerto with the New York Philharmonic. A few weeks later he gave his recital debut, which the New York Times called "the kind of performance that musicians making their debut must dream of: technically polished, interpretatively mature and consistently expressive...This was a debut that Mr. Moye could hang on his wall like a trophy."
Now everyone can hear what the shouting was about, since Columbia issued Moye's first recording last year with pianist Mary Louise Vetrano as the cellist's gifted partner. Moye offers a program of six works, and the result is utterly breathtaking.
The most substantial work on the disk is the D-major transcription of Brahms' G-major violin sonata, Op. 78, published shortly before the composer's death. Experts still dispute whether this version was written by Brahms himself, Julius Klengel, Paul Klengel, or someone else. Some people denounce the transcription; but Brahms himself loved the mellow low range, which makes this version a valuable alternative.
Schumann's three Fastasiestucke, Op. 73, were composed for clarinet, but the composer authorized performance by violin or cello. Moye imbues the work with proper impetuosity. Moye has also resurrected a pleasant three-movement Sonata in G Major by the little-known Jean-Baptiste Breval (1756-1825), who published many such pieces in the 1780s.
Lastly, Moye pays tribute to our century's greatest cellist by filling out the disk with three short works associated with Casals: the Siloti transcription of the second movement from Bach's organ Toccata, Adagio and Fugue, and Casals' own arrangement of the ever-lovely Faure song "Apres un reve," both of which demonstrate Moye's marvelous legato bowing; and the dashing encore piece Requiebros that was written for and dedicated to Casals by his one-time student Gasparo Cassado.
Moye made his Boston debut this April in Jordan Hall, playing Saint-Saens' celebrated A-minor concerto at the season's final event offered by Concerts in Black and White, where Black conductor Wendell English leads the multiracial orchestra. The concert was the best by the orchestra this year. And Moye's performance was impeccably elegant--an impression confirmed when WGBH broadcast a tape of the program the next month. Regrettably, none of the Boston newspapers reviewed the event, but a musical genius like Moye ought to be brought back soon--by someone.