A thrilling album from Steven Isserlis couples the ground-breaking Prokofiev Cello Concerto from the 1930s with Shostakovich’s eruptive response to it written for Rostropovich in 1959. These seminal works mark the cello’s coming of age, enveloping its trademark rhapsodic lyricism in a newly visceral passion.
Paavo Järvi makes his Hyperion debut, conducting an ebullient Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and providing the ideal foil to Isserlis’s impassioned virtuosity.
“In his fascinating booklet note, Isserlis makes a persuasive case for preferring Prokofiev’s 1938 Concerto in E minor to its radical revision…If the earlier version is no masterpiece…this performance vindicates that preference.” – The Sunday Times
“In the first movement Isserlis conjures some surprising, visceral sounds from his instrument, ratcheting up the tension with a febrile, nervy vibrato up high…The soloist contributes his own lively and individualistic booklet-notes, enhancing the value of a fascinating, I'd say unmissable project.” – Gramophone