Otto M. Zykan: Cello Concertos

Album review

An independent and solitary character, Otto M. Zykan (1935-2006) is a composer difficult to define. Born in Vienna, he leaves behind a collection of heterogeneous works in various different languages. Fluctuating between a Schönberg-style dodecaphonism and the provocation of a certain Mauricio Kagel, he took an interest in many different areas. Opposing himself to the commercialisation of his own music, he has stayed virtually unknown. 

This album is the result of two concerts performed in 2015 by the cellist Heinrich Schiff, for whom Zykan wrote several pieces, including the Concerto for cello which searched “for conventional feelings, with three different ambitious movements for cello and orchestra.” It is this worldly creation of 1982 which features here, unfortunately with distorted and mediocre sound on the solo instrument, conducted by Leif Segerstam. 

Composed for Heinrich Schiff, Beethoven’s Cello was Zykan’s last work, created in December 2005 by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Zubin Mehta, this version also featuring on the album. As he considered that Beethoven is the composer who stays with a musician throughout all phases of their life, he inspired himself from the Arietta of the Sonata, Op. 111 to pay homage to the first musical emotions of his childhood which he revisits near the end of his life. © François Hudry/Qobuz