DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No.1. Sonata for violincello and piano op.40 Emmanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Pascal Rophé

Here are two masterpieces for cello by Shostakovich, written 25 years apart. The insolent Sonata op.40 of 1934 – contemporary with Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the opera soon to plunge its composer into disgrace with Stalin – was answered in 1959 by the bitter self-questioning of an artist who seemed to have sunk into depression. This Cello Concerto ends with a wicked caricature of true joy, adding the final touch to the extreme polymorphism of a traumatised humorist who had long since learned not to laugh . . .