From Jewish Life: works for cello and piano

"Inventive programming, passionate playing, compelling listening"
Jessica Duchan, Classic fm Magazine

"It makes for stirring listening and these traditional folk works are played with great skill"
The Shropshire Star

"A winning idea ... the partnership of Marleyn and Lenehan is sympathetic and perfectly balanced. The recording in Bristol is impeccable, and presentation is to Signum's invariably high standard. Why has it waited eight years for release?"
Peter Grahame Woolf, Musical Pointers and Classical Net

Signum Records are delighted to introduce this debut disc of Paul Marleyn and John Lenehan: a haunting CD of music rooted or influenced by Jewish culture.

Jewish musicians have for generations been asked to provide cheerful music for social occasions, when their lives were anything but cheerful. Consequently a style of Jewish folk music has developed which describes the saddest events in an almost agonisingly merry vein. Such traditional folk melodies are presented h e re alongside works by Bernstein, Bloch, Bruch, Schedrin and Stutschewsky.

Bloch's early Cello Sonata (from 1897) has never previously been published or recorded. The celebrated English cellist Steven Isserlis unearthed the music a few years ago and gave the world premiere at London's Wigmore Hall. He generously gave Paul his permission to record this work, as an example of Bloch's beautiful but early, and rather immature, style. The sonata compares fittingly with the further examples of Bloch's repertoire on this disc.