We are in the year 1966, in the Soviet Union. While Shostakovich is enjoying the success of the world première of his Second Cello Concerto, the Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze is putting the finishing touches on his own new work. In their respective concertos, these two composers draw their own psychogram: a sombre landscape intermittently illuminated by rays of light, brightened up with a few prudent dabs of colour here and there.

German shooting star cellist Maximilian Hornung releases his first album on the Myrios Classics label. Born 1986 in Augsburg, Hornung studied with David Geringas, Thomas Grossenbacher and Eldar Issakadze, to whom he dedicated the album. It was Issakadze who introduced him to the fascinating music of Sulkhan Tsintsadze, one of the most celebrated composers of Georgia.

The musical link of Tsintsadze’s Second Cello Concerto to the late work of his Soviet colleague and contemporary, Dmitri Shostakovich is at the core of this gloomy, yet enchanting album. The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under the baton of the latvian conductor Andris Poga provides perfect musical partnership. The disc, recorded in Hi-Res DXD sound, comes in a beautiful PocketPac with a 40-pages booklet that includes an introduction to the works by the Shostakovich biographer and cellist Elizabeth Wilson, who, as a student of Mstislav Rostropovich, attended the premiere performance of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto in Moscow 1966.