Shostakovich's Cello Sonata belied the young composer's reputation as the 'enfant terrible' of early Soviet music. Steven Isserlis's praises it as ''the most popular cello sonata of the twentieth century.'' It features on this program alongside two other Russian masterpieces from pre-Revolutionary Prokofiev and Khrushchev era Kabalevsky.

Een driedubbele cd met het integrale werk voor cello en pianoforte van Ludwig Van Beethoven, dat is het resultaat van de intense muzikale samenwerking van celliste France Springuel en pianist Jan Vermeulen. De twee begonnen drie jaar geleden samen te musiceren en de muzikale klik die beiden toen voelden, deed hen besluiten om het repertoire voor cello en piano aan te pakken. Eerst waren er twee Schubertcd's, dan volgde Schumann, en nu is er dus Beethoven. De sonate voor cello en piano is in feite een uitvinding van Beethoven zelf.

There have been great performances of Beethoven's works for cello and piano before – the classic Casals/Serkin, the magisterial Rostropovich/Richter, the magnificent Fournier/Kempff but for sheer passion and power, these recordings by cellist Mischa Maisky and pianist Martha Argerich simply cannot be bettered. Maisky has a virtuoso technique coupled with a warmly singing tone; Argerich has a super-virtuoso technique coupled with fiery interpretations; together they play like lovers who know every way to excite and satisfy each other.

Notwithstanding the enormous variety of arrangements of Bach's music that have appeared for every conceivable combination of instruments, remakings of Vivaldi have been comparatively rare. Cellist and composer Julian Lloyd Webber here attempts to fill the void, apparently with the primary goal of enlarging the repertory playable for him and his cellist wife, Jiaxin Lloyd Webber. Only one work, the Concerto for two cellos in G minor, RV 531, is as Vivaldi composed it; the others were mostly for pairs of instruments, either similar or dissimilar, originally. The RV 409 concerto was originally for one cello but had an obbligato bassoon continuo that was easy enough to turn into a second cello part.

Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900) is the best of the Brahms disciples. Not only does he sound like Brahms, but he comes as close to writing at the quality of Brahms as any other second-tier composer I’ve heard. He was himself a close friend of Brahms, who was reticent about expressing praise for Herzogenberg’s works. I’ve read some speculation that Brahms was envious of Herzogenberg’s abilities, and after hearing his piano trios and these cello sonatas, I can believe it. R.H.R. Silvetrust, the editor of the Chamber Music Journal said this about Herzogenberg's cello sonatas: "[they] are every bit as good, if not better, than Brahms'. In my opinion, they play better, the balance is better, the piano does not drown out the cello and the writing for the cello is more cellistic and grateful to play.”

By today's standards, there's nothing particularly jarring or seemingly progressive about the mature works of Gabriel Fauré. In his own time, however, he was often criticized for his curious, almost experimental use of harmony in his chamber music, and for what some saw as his neglect of the individual qualities of the instruments for which he was composing. Some of these sentiments have endured and resulted in the infrequent performance of many of his chamber works, in this case the two sonatas for cello and piano. While the cello "miniatures," such as the Op. 24 Elegie and the Op. 7 Apre un Reve (transcribed by Casals), have enjoyed popularity particularly in high school and early college studios, they are not representative of Fauré's developed harmonic language.

It's a pity that this recording has become somewhat hard to find- the arrangements are simply lovely (as well as some of the original works for organ and cello such as the Prayer by Saint-Saens). Although Rostropovich's lush sound does not completely match well to this recording's rather harsh harpsichord, the effect is quite wonderful on the pieces with organ. Highly recommended if you love the cello.

With the appearance of the excellent "les intouvables" collection of du Pre's EMI recordings, a codification which includes a sampling of most everything, why on earth would one opt to glance at the individual selections? The reasons are twofold: First, with the collection one may hear the works together, never fully appreciating their accomplishments individually and that in order to experience the mastery and history of the recordings one might choose to hear them separately. Second, the works as separately released also carry in addition to a complete chronolgic and historic arrangement (see e.g., the last Haydn concerto), the individual recordings coprise additional works meant to be included within their respective final format.

The young Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta has emerged at the top of the heap with some speed in the 2010s. She merits the double greatest-hits album represented by this release, and it will be welcomed by listeners who haven't quite focused on her meteoric career. You get only one full-scale concerto, but it's a good one: Gabetta has a real way with Elgar, and the compilers did well to feature his music on most of disc one. You get the fresh interpretations of repertory recital and encore pieces that have really endeared Gabetta to ordinary concertgoers. Sample the marvelous Fauré Pavane, Op. 50, an excellent example of how with Gabetta, less is often more.

A child prodigy in her youth and a competition-winning virtuoso by her late teens, cellist Anne Gastinel has gone on to handsomely fulfill all the promise augured by such auspicious beginnings. She has appeared on French television, received countless awards, made over a dozen recordings, and given concerts at the major venues throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, often with the leading conductors and orchestras. In addition, despite her busy concert and recording schedules, Gastinel has served on the faculty of the Lyon Conservatory as professor of cello.

Amid the sea of compositions Antonio Vivaldi left for the violin, the Red Priest was also gracious enough to enhance the cellist's repertoire with a nice assortment of concertos and even a handful of sonatas with basso continuo. These works, while satisfying and pleasing, are far from virtuoso works and as such have often been relegated to serve as teaching pieces for high school and college students. In the right hands, however, these nine sonatas can still engage and excite listeners. Cellist Jaap ter Linden would seem to be ideally suited for this task. His distinguished career includes cello performances with many of the world's top Baroque orchestras, as well taking on conducting duties with the same.

Samuel Barber's cello concerto has long been considered the weak sister among his three concertos for solo instrument; this release may alter that perception. It was written in 1945, when he was thirty-five, a time in his life when he was still brimming with confidence about his music, not yet on the defensive against attacks received from many quarters, and not yet attempting to bring contemporary elements into his work. Some of the brouhaha was well-intentioned: Americans in the musical world naturally wanted our first internationally successful composer to represent us at our best, our newest and freshest; others decried his conservative romanticism out of personal jealousy at his wide acceptance.

Hyperion is delighted to present the world’s best-loved cello concerto performed by one of the world’s best-loved cellists: national treasure Steven Isserlis. Isserlis has waited 40 years to record this pinnacle of the repertoire, and here with his regular collaborators, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Harding, this long gestation has proved to be overwhelmingly fruitful. Isserlis writes of the concerto that ‘the power of its emotional journey, expressed with Dvorák’s characteristically folk-like simplicity and directness, offers an irresistible mix of the epic and the touchingly confessional’. The combination of emotional power and simplicity is also a feature of Isserlis’s playing, and part of what makes him such a consummate performer of this work.

Customarily, the booklet notes for recordings containing music transcribed for instruments other than those for which it was written make the argument that such transcriptions were normal, accepted, and so on, in the years when the music was written. The ones for this disc make the same argument, but it's not so relevant in this case – the musicians here join performance style to transcription in an effort to make something new, not just to fill a hole in the cellist's repertory (Mozart never wrote anything for solo cello). The transcriptions from Mozart's sonatas for violin and keyboard were made by cellist Alexander Kniazev, but it is pianist Edouard Oganessian who sets the tone for much of the music.

Guadalupe López-Íñiguez released her debut album with the complete cello works by Gabrielli and Scarlatti, performed on period instruments, in 2017. The record got great reviews around the world. Now López-Íñiguez has got Olga Andryushchenko as a partner for Mendelssohn’s works for cello and piano. With this setup recording has a unique sound and warm feeling. Both musicians are playing with great old instruments. Olga is playing a piano Érard (Paris, 1862), serial number 32602, and Guadalupe performs on a cello by Claude Pieray (Paris, 1725).