Next year is Henri Dutilleux’s centenary (the French composer died in 2013, just shy of reaching 100), which gives us an excuse to sink into his majestic, fine-spun musical universe. There’s no better place to start than with one of his most seductive scores, Tout un Monde lointain, a rapturous cello concerto written for Mstislav Rostropovich in the late 1960s that is full of sumptuous sounds. The name is borrowed from Baudelaire, and each of the five movements quotes the poet, from Enigma’s “strange and symbolic nature” to Surges’ “dazzling stream” to Mirrors’ “immense torches”. James Gaffigan and the Lucerne orchestra tread that tricky line in Dutilleux between sensuous imagery and intense technical refinement, while Emmanuelle Bertrand makes stunning sounds on her cello – now breathy and exquisite, now deep and spicy. The disc opens with Dutilleux’s mystical little solo Strophes and contains a gleaming performance of Debussy’s Cello Sonata from Bertrand and pianist Pascal Amoyel.
