We're told that the Spanish cellist, Lluis Claret, won first prizes at the Bologna, Casals and Rostropovitch competitions in the mid and late 1970s, and besides his concert undertakings now also teaches at the Barcelona School of Music. Here he emerges as an eminently serious, caring musician with a full, warm tone. It sounds particularly full in the Schumann Concerto because he is so forwardly placed—much more so than Yo-Yo Ma in his live recording on CBS. While admiring Claret's respect for the written text and his total refusal to take liberties or indulge in any kind of showmanship, I'm bound to say that it is the more lyrically malleable Yo-Yo Ma who brings a more personal voice to the nostalgic Nicht zu schnell and Langsam as well as achieving a more intimate relationship with his orchestral colleagues. The finale is certainly much more on its toes in the Ma/Davis performance, with its artfully timed and coloured cadenza, and its exuberant home-coming. But some listeners might well prefer Claret's more classical composure. The ECO under Edmon Colomer play in matching style, and the recording is as clear as it is bold and bright.
Like Ma, Claret completes the disc with Schumann's Funf Stucke im Volkston for cello and piano along with the Adagio and Allegro originally written for horn and piano, and the Fantasiestucke for clarinet and piano—for both of which the composer suggested the cello as a valid alternative. Here again it is Claret who emerges as the more conservative and emotionally contained of the two artists, and Ma as the more fluid and impressionably volatile, with a wider range of dynamics and colour. Sometimes Claret's greater calm wins the day (as in the beautiful Adagio intended for the horn) and he's certainly never in danger of being overridden by his sympathetic pianist, Rose-Marie Cabestany—as just once or twice in passing Ma is by the excitable Emanuel Ax (a soloist in his own right). But in the last resort my vote has to go to Ma and his partner for their more arresting immediacy of response.'