Steven Isserlis, Frankfurt

A thrilling album from Steven Isserlis couples the ground-breaking Prokofiev Cello Concerto from the 1930s with Shostakovich's eruptive response to it written for Rostropovich in 1959. These seminal works mark the cello's coming of age, enveloping its trademark rhapsodic lyricism in a newly visceral passion. Om this recording, Paavo Järvi makes his Hyperion debut, conducting an ebullient Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and providing the ideal foil to Isserlis's impassioned virtuosity.

Hailed by Gramophone as ‘a master of his instrument and a musician of lyrical elegance and good taste’and by Le Monde as belonging to ‘the French cello elite’, Christian Pierre La Marca has, in a few years, distinguished himself by his radiant presence in the world’s leading concert halls and his award-winning recordings. After making his debut in Aix-en-Provence, he studied in Paris with Jean-Marie Gamard and Philippe Muller, before continuing with Frans Helmerson in Cologne and Steven Isserlis in London. He rounded off his training with masterclasses under Mstislav Rostropovich, Heinrich Schiff, Anner Bylsma, Natalia Gutmanand Gary Hoffman, and benefited from the advice and encouragement of such musical personalities as Itzhak Perlman, Philippe Jaroussky, Thomas Quasthoff, Leif Ove Andsnes, Maria João Pires, the Artemis Quartett, François-Xavier Roth and Seiji Ozawa. His trajectory was crowned with success at international competitions in Osaka, Frankfurt, London (Philharmonia), New-York (YCA) and Vienna (Haydn) and he has several times been invited to appear at the French Grammies.