Melodiya presents a set of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonatas for cello and piano performed by Daniil Shafran and Anton Ginsburg.

Beethoven was one of the first great composers to pay tribute to cello music. The first two sonatas, op.5, were composed in 1796 concurrently with the first piano sonatas; the Sonata in A major, op.69, emerged in the period of Beethoven’s prime, in the same year with his Fifth and Sixth symphonies; the last two sonatas, op.102, finished in 1817 forestall the composer’s late style.

Daniil Shafran was generally recognized as one of the best cellists of the 20th century. His concert performances from the late 1930s were always a success in Leningrad, Moscow, Vienna, Munich, Rome, London, New York and other cities.

“A Paganini of the 20th century,” “a musician who possesses the most melodious sound among all the living string performers” are just a couple of numerous rapturous comments from music critics on the cellist’s playing. “He was a musician who could sit for a portrait of not just a genuine St Petersburg intellectual or the last romantic, but also a workaholic in the best sense of the word – a man who was literally “chained” to the cello and who did not imagine his life without constant communication with music,” wrote music journalist Artyom Vargaftik about Daniil Shafran.

This recording was made by Daniil Shafran and his permanent ensemble partner and pianist Anton Ginsburg in 1971. Their performance was noted by Soviet and foreign critics as one of the best interpretations of Beethoven’s cello sonatas.