Miaskovsky: Cello Concerto in C minor, Op. 66

Although conceived by utterly divergent characters in lands and times that engender few similarities these days, the cello concertos by Elgar and Myaskovsky make a fascinating coupling. Both men were in their early sixties when writing what was their only concertante work for the instrument, and the prevailing mood of both concertos is one of aristocratic wistfulness married to a mastery of form and rhetoric.

Jamie Walton studied at Wells Cathedral School and the RNCM with Margaret Moncrieff before taking private tuition with William Pleeth who wrote of Jamie: "He is a cellist of outstanding performance ability. Combining warmth of tone with a technical command that reaches dazzling proportions, he leaves little doubt as the success that lies ahead of him.”

"I really cannot praise this performance too highly. Walton cannot be beaten. I shall treasure this recording - literally: I shall hoard it against a musically rainy day: I shall play it from time to time, to restore my faith in the work If I ever again have the misfortune to hear too many inadequate performances. It will, I am sure, do the job every time." The Elgar Society Journal

One of the interesting facts surrounding the incredible number of great Russian musicians born in the Soviet area, is that the overwhelming majority of them came not from proletarian backgrounds, but from established musical families. Mstislav Rostropovich was no exception. Born in 1927 in the oil-rich town of Baku on the Caspian Sea, his mother was a pianist, and his father a cellist who had studied with Pablo Casals. Mstislav went to the Moscow Conservatory where he had composition studies with Shostakovich – this would see the start of a long and fruitful friendship with the composer.

He won the Stalin Prize twice in the 1950s – a dubious honour for a man who became one of the regime’s most outspoken artistic dissidents. Even so he was allowed to continue his travels in the West, settling in the UK, and finally being deprived of his Soviet citizenship in 1978. He returned to Russia in 1990 when Boris Yeltsin’s reforms lead the way to a more open society and political system. Although his repertoire was wide-ranging, from Bach through the Romantic masters to 20th-century giants such as Britten and Shostakovich, it was his fellow countryman’s music that he was especially committed to, especially young composers such as Vlasov and Tishchenko.