Rachmaninov’s impassioned Cello Sonata (1901) is one of the two crucial works - the Second Piano Concerto is the other - that signalled the composer’s return to self-confidence after depression. Rarely can it have been recorded in a performance of such potent and poetic intensity, intelligence and clarity as that which the Scottish cellist Robert Irvine and his responsive, vital pianist, Graeme McNaught, give here. Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata is equally well done: poised, subtle and controlled where it needs to be, but appositely pugnacious, brittle and pointed in the scherzo. Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, an apt vehicle for Irvine’s gloriously seductive singing tone, appealingly separates the two works.

Delphian DCD34034

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