Corinne Morris & SCO - Chrysalis - BBC Radio Scotland 'Classics Unwrapped'

Starting off a track from a new release, from cellist Corinne Morris and the SCO, a thoughtful, beautifully paced prelude by Couperin.

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From my album of the week on Chrysalis it’s on Linn Records featuring the stylish playing of cellist Corinne Morris, a British/French cellist with an amazing back story that I will tell you later. Plenty to come from that record later in the show.

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Well another track from my album of the week from cellist Corinne Morris who is reappearing from the classical musical stage after years away due to injury. It’s a remarkable story about how she’s managed to turn everything around - the album is aptly called Chrysalis, the sense of rebirth, emerging from her years of silence is also clear in the music she’s chosen. Like this gentleman Monn whose music was unplayed until the early part of last century. Monn, an Austrian composer, he came in that gap between baroque and classical and he died very young at 33. I’m sure if he’d lived longer into the classical period, we’d know more about him. Well he’s probably remembered best today for his two cello concerti, one famously recorded by Jaqueline du Pré but there are no conductors on this album treating it more like chamber music. The orchestra semi-circle with Corinne in the middle having the violins on either side gave her a stereo feel which worked very well as she said “the musical conversation between them and her”. This is the allegro…

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A remarkable feat, returning eight years after following an injury to her shoulder, forced to give up playing and unable to even listen to music it in turn led to severe depression. With no playing, work and no money she was forced to sell her cello however not convinced surgery was the answer she started to research and contact a sports therapist, under his guidance she managed to turn her life around. She began to believe again feeling stronger physically and mentally to relaunch her career. She started looking around for a cello eventually she was put in touch with a man who had bought her cello. He heard Corinne’s story and said the cello belonged to her even though she actually wasn't the owner. After six years she was reunited with her cello, her best friend was back in her life…It’s a terrific story and a terrific listen.