The patron saint of neglected instruments, Hindemith composed more than 30 sonatas for very diverse resources – including, unusually, such instruments as the bass tuba and double bass. Among the more obscure combinations is the Sonata for Althorn and Piano, which opens this arresting new disc, and stands out further for including a spoken dialogue between the two players (here, Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov) at the start of its finale. Sonata-starved trombonists also value Hindemith’s contribution to their repertoire, but as Gérard Costes shows, this is not merely Gebrauchsmusik (utility music), useful only to performers themselves. Played with blazing tone by Jeroen Berwaerts, the Trumpet Sonata emerges with particular brilliance. These three brass sonatas generally come across with more subtlety than on the well-known recordings by Glenn Gould and friends. Anchoring this new project, Alexander Melnikov is a superbly thoughtful and questing pianist.

Alexander Rudin and the Ural Youth Symphony Orchestra here present two symphonies by Nikolai Myaskovsky — one of the most undiscovered composers of the 20th century. In his creative legacy, Myaskovsky equals his more famous contemporaries — Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

Though Tchaikovsky had an obvious penchant for writing astounding melodies for the cello (the soaring 5/4 waltz from the Sixth Symphony, or the brooding opening of the A minor Piano Trio for example), he wrote surprisingly little repertoire for the instrument on its own. No concerto exists; the closest cellists have is the popular and charming Variations on a Rococo Theme. Four other short works – two of which are transcriptions by the composer himself – make up the remainder of Tchaikovsky's cello works.

Alexander Glazunov was a committed romanticist and a master orchestrator. Both these qualities are at the forefront in this release. The melodies are rich and moving, with a hint of melancholy; the soloist and orchestra are well balanced, the cello never buried in a wash of orchestral sound; and structure of these single movement works renders them complete and satisfying.

If you are unfamiliar with the music of Kabalevsky, this is a great place to start. Kabalevsky's music is very melodic and extremely accessable. He wrote at the same time as Prokofiev and Shostakovich and his music has the immediate appeal of all the other Russian masters of the late 19th and early to mid twentieth centuries.
His Cello Concertos are especially wonderful - but as a starting point. Check out his Piano concertos and his Symphonies as well. This recording of the Cello Concertos is beautifully played by Alexander Rudin and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

The emergence of the cello as a solo instrument at the beginning of the 19th century encouraged composers to explore its melodic and sonorous potential, with compositions for two or more cellos becoming increasingly popular. Bernhard Romberg and Anton Kraft both had personal connections to Beethoven – their works offer inventive timbres, intimacy and substantial virtuosity. The world premiere recording of the sparkling Concertino by Kraft’s son Nikolaus completes an album of unique gems, influenced by Beethoven and Haydn, which helped to usher in the golden age of the cello.

Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabiev (1787-1851) is beyond any doubt the greatest Russian Musician of his generation (before Glinka). Why, then is he not known better ? Well…his life reads like a novel ; an officer with the imperial army, he was contaminated by liberal ideas in Paris in 1812 and got close to the Decembrist's movement, which got him condemned in the 20ies and deported to Siberia a few years later. He there mixes and confronts Caucasian and « white » music (several decades before Borodin espouses the idea) and finally gets back to Moscow in 1843, in pretty poor health.

« Father of the Russian music », the Russian history books keep saying about Glinka. But what do we generally hear from Mikhail Glinka, except the echoes of Russlan and Ludmilla or from A Life for the Tsar (this CD includes the extraordinary danced interludes brought together by Peter Klimov)? The Moscow Chamber Orchestra, who revealed Alyabiev (FUG 539) offers a outstanding selection on this album. Besides well known works like The Kamarinskaïa or Nocnhoj smotr popularised by Chaliapine and announcing, 50 years in advance, Wolf and Mahler, most of it is indeed unpublished or rare work in the disc repertoire that are gathered here: deliciously diverted Italianisms, stunning fantasies prefiguring Rimski-Korsakov, and especially, everywhere, the colours of a romantic genius.

A nod toward historical authenticity is de rigueur in many kinds of performances, but performances of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821, on the instrument for which it was written are rare indeed. The performer who wants to undertake one faces several obstacles. Few examples of the arpeggione exist; the instrument was invented in Vienna in 1823 but quickly fell out of fashion. That might have been because, with six strings (it is something like a bowed guitar), it is quite difficult to play, and Schubert's sonata is the only major work written for it. Yet the instrument has a truly lovely voice, gentle and songful in its upper register where a cellist really has to bear down. Cellist Alexander Rudin has mastered its intricacies here, and the work emerges as quite idiomatically written for its instrument, not at all as a novelty.

Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata has today become part of the cello repertoire but it was originally written for the arpeggione, a form of bowed guitar invented by the Viennese maker Johann Georg Staufer in 1823. With a unique ethereal sound, this instrument reveals the true beauty of Schubert’s initial conception. The Piano Trio No. 2 was performed at the Vienna Musikverein on the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death—its extremes of urgent drama and sublime bittersweet lyricism are characteristic of Schubert’s artistic surge during his final year.