Rachmaninoff / Prokofiev

Cello Sonatas Rachmaninoff / Prokofiev

Rachmaninov, Prokofiev: Cello Sonatas / Russakovsky, Nicholson / Composer: Sergei Rachmaninov, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Prokofiev / Performer: Alexander Russakovsky, Amber Shay Nicholson / Number of Discs: 1. Cellist Alexander Russakovsky enjoys an international reputation as a performer and teacher. He has given master classes as far afield as Latin America and Taiwan, and in recent years has won first prize at the Angela and Maurice M. Clairmont Competition in Tel Aviv and the Performing Arts Foundation Competition in Santa Barbara. Pianist Amber Shay Nicholson won the 2001 Rachmaninoff Concerto No.3 competition at the Eastman School of Music; she is also a former member of the piano faculty of the University of Southern Mississippi. Recorded in 2012. This new recording brings together two great, but altogether different 20th century Cello Sonatas from Russia: the gorgeous and deeply romantic cello sonata by Rachmaninoff, of near-symphonic proportions, and the cello sonata by Prokofiev, a hybrid piece of his later period, a fascinating mixture of the romantic, the grotesque and the introspective side of the multi faceted composer. As interludes we hear arrangements of Tchaikovsky's ballet music from Sleeping Beauty, and the Sérénade Espagnole by Glazunov, a brilliant show piece. Beautiful, expressive and "Slavic" performances by Russian cellist Alexander Russakovsky.