Description

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s chamber music for violoncello and piano comprises three works, all of which originate from his early compositional period and whose genesis is closely linked to people in his circle at the time.

Seventeen-year-old Rachmaninoff wrote the “Lied”, which was first published posthumously, during a stay with the family of his future wife Natalia. He dedicated this to her cousin Vera. “Prélude et Danse orientale” op. 2 is dedicated to his good friend, the cellist Anatoli Brandoukoff, with whom he played the “Prélude” in the first public concert consisting entirely of his own works. Also dedicated to Brandoukoff is the Sonata op. 19 which is one of the first works that Rachmaninoff wrote after the years of depression he suffered following the failure of his first symphony. Particularly in Opus 2 and the Sonata, it is evident that Rachmaninoff gave the violoncello and piano an equal standing.

For this edition, editor Daniela Macchione draws on the first editions published in collaboration with Rachmaninoff as well as the relevant autographs, which are accessible in the National Museum of Music in Moscow and the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Description

Leos Janacek wrote only two works for cello and piano, of which only Pohadka (Fairy Tale) became established in the concert repertoire. Although he completed the work, the composer did not want to have it published. The history of the work’s composition is long and complicated.

Janacek began writing the work before 1910, however, the Pohadka (Fairy Tale) only received its final form after a series of corrections in 1923.

The second composition, the Presto, is incomplete.

Only a sketch exists which Janacek did not develop further. The original tempo marking of Allegro was changed by Janacek himself to Presto. The work has been discussed under this title in recent Janacek literature.