Not Half Bad For A Bonus Disk

The BBC music mag cover disks that feature chamber music are often the most rewarding and this one from 2002 is a fine live concert recital titled The Romantic Cello. The performers are cellist Ralph Kirshbaum and pianist Roger Vignoles. Interesting to hear Roger Vignoles in this context, I normally associate him with lieder recitals. The recording was made at the Bath Festival in the Assembly Rooms there. The three works featured are the brief Cello Sonata by Debussy, Beethoven's wonderful Cello Sonata in A Op 69 and Brahms's substantial Cello Sonata No 2. The Debussy and Brahms works are both slightly introverted but of high quality and they sandwich the Beethoven which is one of his most inspired works, written around the time of the 5th and 6th symphonies. An exceptional disk, beautifully performed and a real bonus to purchasers of the magazine back then. I remember cellist Julian Lloyd Webber complaining about the magazine giving away free disks of complete works in, as he saw it, competition to commercial releases. Maybe it was this fine recording of his kind of repertoire that he had in mind ?