After Beethoven, Alexander Melnikov and Jean-Guihen Queyras now turn to two more giants of the repertory. Chopin’s Cello Sonata, his last work published in his lifetime, seems almost like a testament, sombre and tormented – a world away from the radiance and surging lyricism of the youthful work by Rachmaninoff that it inspired. These two masterpieces by composers from the two chronological extremities of Romanticism, both pianists above all, are ideally placed in perspective here. © harmonia mundi