by Ben Hogwood

In the last few days we have heard of the sad news of the death of cellist Antonio Meneses at the age of 66. There is a fitting tribute to Meneses in an obituary by The Strad magazine, but we wanted to pay tribute in the form of a playlist of some of his finest recordings.

The sequence, which you can listen to below, includes solo Bach – the Solo Cello Suite no.1 – followed by Brahms‘s Cello Sonata no.1 and the Mendelssohn Song without Words Op.109, with pianist Gérard Wyss. Meneses made some very fine recordings for the AVIE label, of which Gaspar Cassadó‘s Solo Cello Suite was one – and this is followed by a short illustration of his time as cellist in the Beaux Arts Trio, a lovely movement from Dvořák‘s Dumky Trio.

Finally we get to hear Meneses in the orchestral arena, with a recent recording made for Naxos of the Villa-Lobos Fantasia for cello and orchestra, and one of his most famous recordings, the Brahms Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan:

Published post no.2,262 – Tuesday 6 August 2024