Franck & Demus: Sonatas for Cello and Piano

In November 2022, "La Cellissima", the German cellist Maria Kliegel, celebrates her 70th birthday. With this special live album, released internationally for the first time, paladino music honors the exceptional artist. In 1987, together with pianist Jörg Demus (1928–2019), she played the latter's Sonate Poétique, which he had just written at the time, as well as the popular Sonata in A major by César Franck in a concert that can now be listened to. Since winning the second Concours Rostropovitch in 1981, Kliegel has been among the international elite of her instrument, to which countless recordings attest. This rare testimony from the early years of her career impressively demonstrates Kliegel's poetic expressiveness and her technical brilliance. Jörg Demus, to whom the music of César Franck was particularly close, is heard here as her congenial duo partner, and so this release also recalls an artistic partnership that was to last for decades.