Cellist Johannes Moser and pianist Andrei Korobeinikov present Bohuslav Martinů’s complete cello sonatas. These works belong to the most significant twentieth-century repertoire for cello and piano. Reflecting Martinů’s troubled existence, defined by wartime, emigration, longing for the homeland, yet also full of hope and life-affirming energy, the music seems entirely topical in our own troubled times. After their award-winning recording of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff from 2016, Moser and Korobeinikov demonstrate their congeniality once more, fully realizing the extreme interdependence of cello and piano in these works.

Oh, not another Dvořák Cello Concerto recording, you would be justified in asking. Well, yes and no. This is indeed a special one, but not only for the superb performance the German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser gives with the Prague Philharmonia under Jakub Hrůša of this most popular of all cello concertos. What makes this disc practically indispensable is its inclusion of the less frequently heard Lalo concerto in the best account I have heard since Pierre Fournier recorded it many years ago with Jean Martinon and the Lamoureux Orchestra for DG.

Contemporary composer Fernando Velázquez presents Viento, together with the Basque National Orchestra, the choir Kup Taldea and international star cellist Johannes Moser. After multiple international successes as a film composer, Viento shows Velázquez’s skill in genres such as the symphonic poem, cantata and cello concerto. The album opens with his cello concerto, which combines an elegiac, Stabat Mater-like opening movement with a heroic, rock-inspired middle movement and a finale that employs the Basque Zortziko dance rhythm. Moser’s masterly interpretation brings out all the colours and episodes of this exceptional score.

German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser and Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson present a moving portrait of the Mendelssohn family with this recording of pieces by the siblings Felix and Fanny. Once composed for the popular Sunday Sessions at the Berlin Mendelssohn family house, these works fit into the typically nineteenth-century tradition of domestic music-making, albeit at the highest thinkable level. Beatson plays an 1837 Érard fortepiano, identical to the instrument that belonged to the Mendelssohn household when these pieces were composed. Besides Felix Mendelssohn’s two sonatas for cello and piano, his Variations concertantes, op. 17, Lied ohne Worte, op. 109 and Albumblatt in B Minor are featured. Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn’s Fantasia in G Minor and Capriccio in A-flat Major show what could have become of this talented female composer if societal conventions had not restricted her musical activities to the private salon.

In Russian chamber music, a rather special tradition evolved around the piano trio, with a number of composers turning to the genre to write ‘instrumental requiems’. First out was Tchaikovskywith his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, ‘à la mémoired’un grand artiste’, and he was followed by composers such as Rachmaninov, Arenskyand Shostakovich. In the case of Tchaikovsky’s trio, the ‘grand artiste’ was the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, and Tchaikovsky chose the trio genre as he felt that a piece for solo piano would be too lightweight and one with orchestral accompaniment would be too showy. The work is in two movements, a Pezzoelegiaco(‘elegiac piece’) and a set of variations, and it begins with the cello playing a moving lament which sets the tone for the entire first movement. The theme returns at the end of the second movement in the form of an impassioned funeral march.

This album features cello concertos by Witold LutosIawski and Henri Dutilleux performed by the multiple prize-winning German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Thomas Sondergard. These works, premiered in 1970, are two of the biggest gems of the twentieth century, the golden age of the cello. While equally virtuosic and engaging, both pieces showcase different aspects of the musical landscape of the late twentieth century.