Mendelssohn/Chopin : Janos Starker/Gyorgy Sebok

A powerful broad theme, driven by nervous, throbbing chains of semiquavers (16th notes) in the piano and a vigorously bowed cello which sings out its melody with a bitter-sweet tone – if every chamber-music work began so invitingly as Mendelssohn’s D major Cello Sonata, then the number of fans of works for small ensemble would rapidly increase. The dedicatee Count Wielhorsky, an excellent amateur cellist, must surely have revelled in this closely-knit work with its waft of salon air. Although it is somewhat astonishing that Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata is left unmentioned in some music handbooks, this is soon forgotten when one listens to Janos Starker and György Sebök playing the work so resolutely and with such refreshing vitality.