Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19

The young German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich has rapidly made a name for himself as one of the most exciting and gifted cellists of his generation. Leonard Elschenbroich’s many awards include: the Leonard Bernstein Award, Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, Eugene Istomin Prize, Pro Europa prize, Landgraf von Hessen price of the Kronberg Academy, Nordmetall Prize of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festiva and the Firmenich Prize of the Verbier Festival.

From 2004–2008 he was supported by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, performing with her on a number of occasions, including a European tour. He is also part of the BBC New Generation Artists programme, and appeared at the 2012 Proms season together with his chamber music partners Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynyuk. Together with Benedetti and Grynyuk he embarks on a major chamber music tour of Scotland in March. Rachmaninov’s cello sonata was composed at the same time as the Second Piano Concerto. Although as one would expect from such a great pianist-composer, the piano part is demanding, it never threatens to overwhelm the cello, and the result is a beautifully balanced and passionate work.

Shostakovich’s viola sonata was his last composition, finished on his deathbed. Sketches show that the composer was also considering a second cello sonata for his old friend Rostropovich – then living outside the USSR. The arrangement on this CD for cello was made by Daniil Shafran with the dying composer's blessing. In the Viola Sonata, as in his Fifteenth Symphony, Shostakovich alludes to several of his previous works, from the Suite for two pianos Op.6 to the opening movement (De Profundis) from his Fourteenth Symphony. He also quotes from other composers’ works, Berg’s Violin Concerto and, most obviously, throughout the final Adagio, from the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, which he uses as the basis for a kind of free meditation.

This recording is the result of the passion the young musicians Camille Thomas (cello) and Beatrice Berrut (piano) have always felt for Russian music.

Whatever its period of composition, they find in this repertoire the profundity and complexity of the Slavic soul, taking to extremes the expression of human torments.

Camille Thomas: ‘For this recording we immediately thought of playing Russian music. In A Century of Russian Colours, we start with a very Romantic composition, Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata op.19. The programme continues with a very rarely recorded work, bearing the marks of Soviet communism, showing fear and anguish, but also the rigour and conformism of Dmitry Kabalevsky.

We end with a young composer who is very highly thought of in the musical world: Lera Auerbach, one of the last artists to be stripped of Russian nationality, who now lives in the United States and Germany.’

Julian Steckel won first prize at the international ARD competition in 2010 where he also won the audience prize.