Russian Cello Sonatas

"The musicians are at their best in the Shostakovich. Of course, this is a more acerbic work than the two preceding, but the angular first-movement opening in no way prepares you for the wonderfully lyrical, Fauré-like tune that follows (as if the composer had morphed into "Shostakofiev"). Chaushian and Sudbin avoid the temptation to embellish the music's dark elements with thick, black underlining, and instead adhere to a strict musical discipline that allows the work's varying moods to emerge spontaneously. Nonetheless, there's sufficient bite in the scherzo, gloom in the largo, and frenzy in the finale to fulfill the composer's intentions. After this, Rachmaninov's ever-popular Vocalise makes for a soothing, transporting conclusion to the program. The well-balanced, naturally spacious recording (CD and stereo SACD) is icing on the cake. An excellent disc. Strongly recommended."
(10/10 ClassicsToday May 2011)

The three sonatas are here given warm and inspired performances by the Armenian-born cellist Alexander Chaushian with Yevgeny Sudbin, his chamber music partner of long standing, at the piano.

The two have previously recorded sonatas by Mieczyslaw Weinberg for BIS (BISCD1648); a disc which was hailed as 'the best possible case for a reappraisal of this undervalued composer' by BBC Music Magazine, while the reviewer for International Record Review believed it 'difficult to imagine finer performances than these'.

Composed between 1860 and 1934, the works on this disc hail from a momentous period in Russian music - from the emergence of a national Russian school of composing advocated by the group called 'The Mighty Five', to Stalin's denunciation of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which was to cause generations of Russian composers to harness their modernist leanings.