The Britten Cello Suites (Part 5): An Interview with Steven Isserlis — by Aron Zelkowicz
Your 1992 recording of Britten's Third Suite is widely known, due to its pairing with John Tavener's "The Protecting Veil" (which has been called a "cult" recording). Do you have any approximate idea of how many copies that album has sold? I don't know—quite a few, anyway. I wonder how many people have listened to the Britten, though! There's another connection: the very first time I went to see John Tavener with my cello, I played him the passage in the coda of the Britten where the cello breaks into a chordal version of the chant for the dead—like a Russian Orthodox choir. I remember him saying how wonderful that music sounded on the cello. Much later, John heard me play the whole suite, and—rather to my surprise, because it [...]
