Gwendeline Lumaret: Naji Hakim, Cello Works

Gwendeline Lumaret: Naji Hakim, Cello Works

It’s a game of two halves, they say — and this collection fits the cliché. Some pieces you could play on repeat; others need a bit of a run-up. It’s not inaccessibly difficult, but it’s certainly not “The Four Seasons” either. The album opens with “Arabesque et Variations”, a solo cello work based on the Egyptian song “Ya Chadi el Alhhan”. It begins playfully, almost like a dance — the kind of tune that might charm a snake in “Indiana Jones” — b…