Draeseke Cello Sonata

[eschiss1]

I would like to belatedly thank Cypressdome (and Schalltrichter) for fixing and uploading the first edition of Draeseke's cello sonata, score and parts, to IMSLP.
(I will take comments about how people "should" get the Wollenweber edition as read. Given just how very very much the parts of his A major string quintet cost- I found that* in the dictionary under "just because you can do this, doesn't mean you should" - stick with the Forberg for now, and do perform it, please!)

*To clarify, since I guess I must, "that" doesn't mean the piece. The quintet is terrific music too.

[Alan Howe]

Thank you, Eric, for reporting this. I don't think there's a greater Cello Sonata in the entire repertoire. There - I've said it...

[John Boyer]

I don't think there's  a greater Cello Sonata in the entire repertoire. There - I've said it...

Not even Beethoven 3, Mendelssohn 2, Brahms 1, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Prokofiev, or Shostakovich?  🤔

(Never mind the very fine also-rans like Rubinstein 1, Reinecke 1, any of the Herzogenbergs, Rheinberger, and Foote)

[eschiss1]

I have listened and re-listened to the Draeseke often enough to be willing to make at least the much more minor statement that there -really- ought to be more than one complete recording of the work (and that one, to my knowledge, a -no longer available- limited-distribution one from 1999 from Alan Krueck's label.) But I might aim rather higher, too. (And I'd put the Myaskovsky sonatas higher on that list myself but I'm not as fond of Rachmaninoff's early effort as I am of his 2- for example. And for all that there's not enough good music out there for cello and piano, there's enough , and even enough rarely-heard very good music, to make choice difficult. Good!
Oh btw, whatever label I was listening to the other day, Bax's cello sonata on your CD is very, very clearly in E-flat minor. Writing that it's in E-flat major on your label just shows you're not listening. The composer wrote "E-flat", but that doesn't mean E-flat major; use the old ears. (Sorry. ) )

[John Boyer]

It is curious that we've had multiple Rubinstein and Reinecke recordings (and I'm not complaining) but only one of the Draeseke, which is one of his best works. 

[Alan Howe]

It's been my opinion since I first heard it many moons ago. It's a shame that its only commercial recording is so hard to find nowadays. I always think of the wonderful arching theme of the opening movement as the chamber music equivalent of Bruckner 7.