AUDIO REVIEW - Shauna Rolston: Dreamscape
Shauna Rolston
Dreamscape
CBC Records MVCD 1175
(cbcshop.ca or shaunarolston.com)
The Edmonton, Canada-born cellist Shauna Rolston has crafted an unusually soul-satisfying program of meditative tenderness. We feel nurtured by her refined, highly expressive tone in the graceful “Méditation,” by French composer Jules Massenet, followed by an affectionately wistful “Salut d’Amour” (Salute to Love) by Britain’s Edward Elgar. Deeper emotions are plumbed with the poignant “Adagietto” from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which one of Mahler’s own friends described as a “declaration of love” to his wife, Alma. The “Adagietto” took on a separate identity as a metaphysical appreciation of life when it was performed in 1968 during a requiem mass for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Rolston expresses these shifting moods with sinuous grace, adding a gleaming rendition of “Asturiana” from Seven Spanish Folk Songs by Manuel de Falla, a soaring evocation of northern Spain. Currently serving as a professor in the music faculty at the University of Toronto, Rolston explains that her teaching focuses on “freedom, creativity, trust, and the science of the physical self as the ultimate expressive instrument . . . as an extension of the mind and creative spirit of each student.” These virtues shine in her playing, which moves and enlightens us.
Dreamscape
CBC Records MVCD 1175
(cbcshop.ca or shaunarolston.com)
The Edmonton, Canada-born cellist Shauna Rolston has crafted an unusually soul-satisfying program of meditative tenderness. We feel nurtured by her refined, highly expressive tone in the graceful “Méditation,” by French composer Jules Massenet, followed by an affectionately wistful “Salut d’Amour” (Salute to Love) by Britain’s Edward Elgar. Deeper emotions are plumbed with the poignant “Adagietto” from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which one of Mahler’s own friends described as a “declaration of love” to his wife, Alma. The “Adagietto” took on a separate identity as a metaphysical appreciation of life when it was performed in 1968 during a requiem mass for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Rolston expresses these shifting moods with sinuous grace, adding a gleaming rendition of “Asturiana” from Seven Spanish Folk Songs by Manuel de Falla, a soaring evocation of northern Spain. Currently serving as a professor in the music faculty at the University of Toronto, Rolston explains that her teaching focuses on “freedom, creativity, trust, and the science of the physical self as the ultimate expressive instrument . . . as an extension of the mind and creative spirit of each student.” These virtues shine in her playing, which moves and enlightens us.
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