Within the extensive repertoire of the German composer Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), music for cello and piano occupies a considerable position in terms of both quantity and quality. Hindemith was primarily a violist and conductor, but his wide-ranging interests led him to experiment with a great variety of instruments both as composer and player, making him a de facto multi-instrumentalist. Among his favourite instruments, the cello always occupied a special place in his activities, among other things because of his collaboration with his brother Rudolf, an excellent cellist.

His original compositions for the specific duo of cello and piano are varied and numerous, and they provide a synthetic vision of the different stylistic instances of an author who never got tired of rethinking and redefining his language. This recording brings together and offers the listener this entire wonderful portion of Hindemith’s catalogue.

The Drei Stücke, op.8 (1917), are undoubtedly among the most important pieces of the composer’s youthful phase. The later Sonata, op.11 no.3, a composition of considerable constructive commitment and complex genesis, is recorded here for the first time in both versions: one from 1919 (lost piano parts reconstructed by Fazıl Say), the other from 1921. The delicate and expressive Drei leichte Stücke ‘Cello in first position’, composed in April 1938, are intended for the didactic sphere, without renouncing in the slightest the peculiarities of the harmonic language of the composer. The same can be said of the brief and melancholic Meditation, a transcription of a movement from Hindemith’s orchestral ballet Nobilissima Visione. More complex is A Frog he went a-courting. Despite its brevity, it is one of the finest pieces on this programme. A dozen concise variations, framed by the initial exposition and the concluding return of the traditional English theme, present a wealth of instrumental, timbral, expressive and dynamic solutions in a small, dense, brilliant display of Hindemith’s compositional mastery. Do not be deceived by the title Kleine Sonate (1942), which is small in size but not in terms of compositional complexity. The imposing Cello Sonata (1948) was written for Gregor Piatigorsky and premiered by him in New York in the year it was composed. Comparing this Sonata to the Sonata, op.11 no.3, conveys a sense of the stylistic evolution across some 30 years.