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Vinyl - Rachmaninov - Sonato For Cello & Piano - Harrell, Ashkenazy.
Despatched by Royal Mail Second Class.
Vinyl in very good condition, outer sleeve and inner sleeve in very good condition. No formal grading given.
SIDE 1 Sonata for Cello and Piano, op.19 1.   I - Lento - Allegro moderato (10.37) 2.   II - Allegro scherzando (6.37) 3.   III - Andanta (6.45) 4.   IV - Allegro mosso (9.05)
SIDE 2 1. Prelude, op.2 no.1 (3.24) 2. Oriental Dance, op.2 no.2 (4.34) 3. Altschuler: Melodie on a theme by Rachmaninov (5.30) 4. Romance (1890) (2.02) 5. Vocalise, op.34 no.14 (6.58)
Rachmaninov: Complete Works for Cello and Piano This recording brings together all the music which Rachmaninov wrote for solo cello, an instrument which, to judge from the sensitive use he made of it in an orchestral context, he found particularly congenial to his own musical personality. However, his only large-scale work for cello was the Sonata in G minor opus 19, composed in 1901 at a time when confidence in his creative abilities, thoroughly shaken by the caustic critical reception given to his First Symphony in 1897, was beginning to return to him and to manifest itself in an energetic, assured burst of composition. Not only did he complete the Second Piano Concerto (in May 1901), but he also wrote the love duet (in July 1900), for his opera Francesca da Rimini, the Second Suite for two pianos (1900-1901) and the Cello Sonata; within a couple more years he had also written the Chopin Variations and the Ten Preludes opus 23 for piano. 
All these works have a certain affinity with one another, both through the spontaneity and easy flow of their melodic lines and through the rich harmonic colouring which characterises the music of Rachmaninov's maturity. All except the duet for Francesco da Rimini reveal too the extraordinary versatility, resourcefulness and power of Rachmaninov's fully-fledged piano writing, a trait which lends the Cello Sonata much of its dramatic impact. That is not to say, however, that the cello itself is neglected as an expressive force: indeed, after the slow introduction, it is the cello which launches the Sonata with its passionate, yearning opening theme, and, for all that the sheer brilliance of the piano writing cannot fail to assert itself, the two instruments are both vigorously worked in the scherzo and contrasted to sublime effect in the Andante.
The Sonata, conceived on a grand scale, was dedicated to Rachmaninov's close friend, the cellist Anatoly Brandukov, who gave his first performance of it (with Rachmaninov himself as pianist) in Moscow on 2 December 1901. Brandukov was also the dedicatee of the Two Pieces opus 2, written while Rachmaninov was still a student in the early 1890s and comprising an F major Prelude (a re-working of a slightly earlier Prelude for piano solo) and a Danse orientale in A minor. 
The earliest of the shorter pieces on this recording - the Romance - was also written with a particular instrument in mind. In the summer of 1890 Rachmaninov spent the first of many holidays at his uncle's (and eventually his own) country estate, Ivanovka, where he met three distant cousins, Natalya, Lyudmilla, and Vera Skalon. He formed a particularly close friendship with Vera, who played the cello, and it was for her that he wrote the F minor Romance (or 'Lied', as it is described on the manuscript), completing it on 6 August. In the same year, Rachmaninov probably wrote his D major Melodie. Modest Altschuler, the cellist and an exact contemporary of Rachmaninov, reports that the original manuscript was 'written out on several loose scraps of paper'. However, Altschuler subsequently made a fair copy 'to facilitate performances', and the piece was eventually published in 1947, as 'Melodie on a theme by S. Rachmaninoff. Dedicated to and arranged by Modest Altschuler'. Several other musicians have made cello arrangements of one of Rachmnaninov's most popular works, the Vocalise, in which the seamless, wistful melodic line (originally conceived for the soprano voice of Antonina Nezhdanova and included in the set of Fourteen Songs opus 34) is ideally suited to the cello timbre. Brandukov published an arrangement in 1922, Leonard Rose another in 1946, and on this recording Lynn Harrell plays his own transcription. Geoffrey Norris.