Grammophone

Rafael Kubelik was one of our foremost interpreters of Dvorak and other great Czech composers such as Smetana and Janacek. His critically acclaimed 1960's Dvorak symphony Deutsche Grammophon cycle was reissued several years ago as a budget-priced collection.

Steven John Isserlis is one of the leading internationally ranked cellists. He plays a wide range of repertory and is noted for using gut strings and a great deal of vibrato. He is the grandson of Russian composer and pianist Julius Isserlis and can trace his family tree back to connections with both Karl Marx and Felix Mendelssohn. He spent most of his teenage years (1969-1976) at the International Cello Centre as a pupil of Jane Cowan,who required her students to read Goethe's Faust in order to understand Beethoven better and memorize Racine to know the sound of the language when playing French music.

Firma Melodiya presents recordings of the outstanding violist Mikhail Kugel. Unfortunately, this name is little known in this country and much better known in Europe where he has played concerts and given master classes for the last 20 years. However, in the beginning of his performing career in the 1970s and 1980s, he was considered one of the best Soviet violists. He shared the first prize with Hungarian violist Zoltán Tóth at the international competition in Budapest in 1975 (Yuri Bashmet won the second prize at the same competition).