Francesco Geminiani's exuberant Op.5 Cello Sonatas hold a cherished place in the baroque cello repertoire and yet are very infrequently recorded. In their delicate balance between wildness and elegance, it is much easier to fall in love with them than to do justice to them. Cellist George Ross, already well-known to fans of the Consone Quartet, grew up playing these sonatas for fun with his father, harpsichordist Alastair Ross, and their easy intimacy both with one another and with the sonatas shines through in this incredibly charismatic recording.

Cellist George Ross studied at Royal College of Music in London where he encountered the baroque cello, receiving lessons from Richard Tunnicliffe, then pursued a Masters in historical cello at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Jaap ter Linden. In 2013, he founded the Consone Quartet which became the first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists. Most recently, George has enjoyed returning to the English Haydn Festival as a soloist to perform concertos by C.P.E. Bach and Schumann. He has worked with such groups as the English Concert, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Arcangelo, and the Hanover Band.

Alastair Ross was a chorister at Christ Church, and later an organ scholar at New College, Oxford. As a freelance organist and harpsichordist for fifty years, Alastair has played for The Sixteen and the Academy of Ancient Music, appearing on all their award-winning recordings for most of that time. For twenty years, with his wife Gilly, he directed Concerto delle Donne, a three-soprano group specialising in music from 17th- and 18th-century Italy and France. They made two recordings for Signum Records, the first one of music by Carissimi, and a visit to a historic organ outside Paris resulting in a further CD of Charpentier’s church music.