After Dreams, and the Bach Cello Suites, two recordings that enjoyed both critical and public acclaim, Ophélie Gaillard turns here to Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto and the complete music for cello and piano of Franz Liszt. The result of this juxtaposition of two worlds, those of two composers of great sensitivity, is a programme captivatingly combining passion with an expression of the mysteries of life. Once again we see the eclecticism that Ophélie Gaillard has always shown. For the Schumann Concerto, this brilliant young cellist is accompanied by the National Radio Orchestra of Romania (which has played with the likes of Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Martha Argerich and Mstislav Rostropovich), under the young conductor Tiberiu Soare (a favourite of the singer Angela Gheorghiu).

Schumann, who took up the cello at one time, attains an expressive maturity in his Concerto that enables him to bring out all the warmth and sensuality of the instrument, which he presents in an orchestral setting of admirable depth. For the second part of the programme, Ophélie Gaillard is joined by the fine pianist Delphine Bardin (winner of the coveted Clara Haskil Prize). These pieces show the soberness and bold language that characterise Liszt’s late works. He had tamed his virtuosity considerably by then and his harmony shows him breaking away more and more from tonality (Liszt declared to an astonished Vincent d’Indy that ‘he aspired to do away with tonality’). They also immerse us in surprising environments, sometimes haunting, sometimes very bleak – a world of subtle emotions just waiting to be discovered!