Schnittke: Cello Concertos / Cello Sonatas / Concerto grosso No. 2

"Those who didn't buy these recordings the first time around are now fortunate; this set is surely today's hot ticket into Schnittke's big works for 'accompanied' cello."
(MusicWeb Nov 2007)

"A disc that critic Philip Clark calls in his review "the definitive document of Schnittke's relationship with the cello" can make for uncomfortable listening. Properly so, as the First Concerto was composed around Schnittke's dreadful stroke in 1985. Welcome to his uncompromising world." - Editor's Choice, Gramophone Magazine Feb 2008

This newly compiled two-CD set is taken from four back catalogue CDs and features the distinguished cellist Alexander Ivashkin, a friend of Alfred Schnittke from 1969 until the latter's death in 1998. Chandos has recorded a broad and important survey of Schnittke's music, which has done much to establish the composer's presence on CD. This re-issue is Ivashkin's tribute to his friend and colleague.

Schnittke is recognised as having produced some of the most moving and original music of the late twentieth century, and the works for cello are certainly amongst the most important in Schnittke's output. Reviewing the recording of Concerto Grosso No. 2 on its original release, Gramophone declared, 'with two fine soloists in the Concerto Grosso, this is a must for collectors of the Chandos Schnittke series and a welcome reminder of one of the later twentieth century's most distinctive and troubling musical voices'.

Not only a devotee of Schnittke's music, Alexander Ivashkin is also the composer's biographer. Here he plays Cello Sonatas Nos 1 and 2 with Schnittke's wife, Irina, Classic CD observing that these are 'performances which may be regarded as wholly definitive', while Concerto Grosso No. 2 also features Tatiana Grindenko, one of the first Soviet advocates of Schnittke's music. The concertos were recorded with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra under Valeri Polyansky.