Born in Prague, cellist Jiří Bárta studied in Cologne with Boris Pergamenschikow before winning several international competitions. His repertoire is not limited to works from the classical repertoire, as he enjoys playing in jazz ensembles. He forms a regular duo with his partner, pianist Terezie Fialová, and they both play in the Eben Trio, in which they are joined by violinist Roman Patočka.
Recorded near Prague in April 2021 at the Atrium na Žižkově, an ancient baroque church converted into a concert hall in the 1970s, Beethoven's Sonatas for Cello and Piano suffer from an excessively reverberating acoustic that sometimes impairs the balance between the two instruments, hence the feeling of extreme timidity that sometimes seems to come over the two players.
The five Sonatas for Cello and Piano cover what we usually call Beethoven's "three periods", from his early works still rooted in the late eighteenth century, through the lyricism of his middle period, to the harmonic audacity of his later works. The approach given here by the two Czech musicians is first and foremost based on a classical elegance. © François Hudry/Qobuz