CCMusic.com

An astonishing success story goes into it's second overtime on Volume 8 of our Dutch Cello Sonata series. This time this release is really supposed to mark the conclusion, and for this occasion Doris Hochscheid and Frans van Ruth have selected sonatas by Georg Hendrik Witte and Wouter Hutschenruyter made to order for a crowning culmination. Utrecht was the hometown of both composers, but their paths also crossed in other places. On a recommendation from Richard Strauss, White gained a foothold in Essen, where he shaped it's expanding music culture over many years. He had a special talent for persuading the greats of the European music world to come to perform in Essen, which until then had been a rather insignificant coal-mining town. A special high point was surely his role in initiating the premiere of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in Essen's recently built concert hall- in a performance by the Utrecht Orchestra, which had developed into a phenomenal ensemble with Wouter Hutschenruyter as it's principal conductor. The compositions of the two are closely related. Witte had received significant impulses during his studies in Leipzig. The tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn held in the highest honor in that city is in audible evience in his works. The Drei Stucke in particular clearly reveal Schumann's famous Fantasiestucke as their source of inspiration.