This is an exceptionally accomplished debut recording from cellist Laura van der Heijden, winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2012. It includes Soviet composers’ irritated and defiant responses to the Communist regime’s 1948 decree on what they could write. Prokofiev’s 1949 Sonata is a blistering, angry work, performed here with passion and guts. Myaskovsky’s 1948 Sonata, which, ironically, went on to win the Stalin Prize, harks back to the Romantic age—the richness and depth of van der Heijden’s tone is a thing to behold. The final, melancholy Lyadov Prelude is an aching portrait of Russian despair.

Jennifer Pike writes: ‘This recording project of Polish music is one that is particularly close to my heart. The idea for the series arose from an awareness of the sound world associated with Polish music, of the country’s long-held fascination with the violin, and of my own Polish heritage on my mother’s side. As a successor to the first volume, released in 2019, this album continues to explore a breadth of repertoire that includes some rarely heard gems. The Violin Sonata, one of Szymanowski’s earlier compositions, is a work brimming with late-romantic intensity.

Hideko Udagawa’s latest album for Russian label Northern Flowers celebrates rich legacy of Russian music with world premieres and rare works for violin and piano. Recording includes first recordings of new transcriptions of Rachmaninov’s Elégie and Tchaikovsky’s Romance.