For those unware, Cello 360 is a truly remarkable, timeless journey traversing a whole range of solo cello repertoires from French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca.

From Baroque to electronic music, in this cleverly devised sequence, across all the genres, La Marca reveals the infinite possibilities of the instrument.

Hailed by Le Monde as belonging to ‘the French cello elite’ and by La Croix as ‘a young man who already ranks among the masters of the cello’, Christian-Pierre La Marca has, in the space of a few years, distinguished himself by his radiant presence in the world’s leading concert halls and his recordings, all of which have won awards.

For his first recording with Naïve, La Marca has made an artistic statement of unusually wide range and high impact.

1. Sainte Colombe the elder: Suite in E minor: Prelude
2. Dowland: Lachrimae Antiquae
3. Marais, M: Les Folies d'Espagne (from Pièces de viole, Book II)
4. Rameau: Les Sauvages
5. Casals: El Cant dels Ocells (Song of the birds)
6-8. Dutilleux: Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher
9. Purcell: When I am laid in earth (from Dido and Aeneas)
10-11. Ligeti: Sonata for Cello solo
12. Marais, M: Les Voix Humaines
13. Telemann: Sonata for Viola da Gamba, TWV 40:1: II. Courante. Allegro vivace
14. Escaich: Cantus I
15. Grieg: Solveig's Song (from Peer Gynt)
16. Sollima: Lamentatio
17. Chaplin, C: Modern Times
18. Lennon & McCartney: Yesterday
19. Saddier: Timeless

The 19-track album opens up the multifaceted, infinite horizons of the cello, demanding ever more from the instrument while always letting it sing, on this truly remarkable journey.

Indeed, the Frenchman obviously relishes crossing between genres and historical periods from the 17th to the 21st centuries, for here on this delightfully varied array of modes of performance mechanisms, inclusive of a multi-tracking to build up a many-voiced polyphonic texture, it brings forth a single cello rotating through a full 360 degrees of temporal and technical diversity.

"I really like the cross-cultural, multi-genre aspect of this CD," La Marca informs. "I love going from one musical style to another, creating links that did not previously exist, so as to reveal the infinite possibilities of the instrument.”

Chock full of lyrically stylish, and romantically-imbued musical twists and turns, La Marca's work here is simply flawless. Permeated with gorgeous lines of portamentos and with a resoundingly articulate vibrato laced throughout ('yesterday'), the various moments of high-speed pizzicato and bowing techniques ('les temps modernes') are equally as breathtaking to behold.