Even though both the First Cello Concerto op.107 of 1959 and the Second Cello Concerto op.126 of 1966 were written after Stalin's death in 1953, the threat of Soviet dictatorship and censorship continues to be palpable. With the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Yakov Kreizberg, Daniel Müller-Schott offers an exemplary interpretation of both concertos that also does justice to the peculiarities and details of their instrumentation, notably in the second movement of the Second Concerto, in which Shostakovich uses a popular song from the time of the Russian Revolution to produce a grotesque dance with dissonant fanfares.

No less typical of Shostakovich are the reminiscences of composers such as Mussorgsky and the set of variations in the final movement of the op.126 Concerto, written at a time when the composer was already marked out by death, a piece described by Daniel Müller-Schott as ‘perhaps the most emotionally multilayered of all cello concertos’, the abrupt ending of which is as disturbing as it is profoundly moving.