Cellist Robin Michael and pianist Daniel Tong present a fascinating new recording of the two sonatas for cello and piano by Johannes Brahms along with Robert Schumann's distinctive Fünf Stücke im Volkston, op.102.

Taking a historically informed approach, this unique-sounding performance of these mainstays of the repertoire gives a captivating insight into the chamber music sound world of the late-nineteenth century, performed on an 1890s Blüthner boudoir grand piano thought to have been played and selected by Brahms himself from the maker’s factory and a cello strung with gut.

Reviews

This is one of those rewarding recordings that makes you totally reassess music from the mainstream repertoire. Robin Michael’s gut-strung cello is softly sonorous, a perfect match for Daniel Tong’s masterly pianism on an 1897 Blüthner – said to have been played and chosen by Brahms on a visit to the Leipzig piano builder in the last year of the composer’s life. ... The playing is virtuosic but the sound world is subtly shaded, almost restrained, and recreates the atmosphere of an intimate recital in a tasteful 19th-century drawing room. Stephen Pritchard

The Observer 30 April 2017