This album brings together Johannes Brahms’s two masterful sonatas for cello and piano, works often regarded as “veiled symphonies” for their symphonic breadth within the chamber music form. Written over two decades apart, these sonatas showcase Brahms’s profound love for the cello – an instrument he studied in his youth – and his deep engagement with musical traditions stretching from Bach to Beethoven. The E minor Sonata, op.38, conceived as an homage to Bach, unfolds with striking intensity, combining Romantic expressiveness with contrapuntal rigour. Its expansive first movement, dance-inspired minuet, and fugal finale embody Brahms’s ability to blend historical influences with fresh emotional resonance .

The F major Sonata, op.99, composed during a highly fertile summer by Lake Thun in 1886, reveals a very different Brahms: fiery, impassioned, and boldly lyrical. Written for cellist Robert Hausmann, the work opens with stormy piano tremolandi and soaring cello lines, before moving into a tender, hymn-like slow movement. A dramatic scherzo brimming with rhythmic energy and a playful yet triumphant finale close the sonata, capturing both Brahms’s intellectual depth and his more exuberant side. Contemporary critics may have disagreed on its merits, but the F major Sonata has since stood as a cornerstone of the cello repertoire .

In this recording, cellist Livia Stanese and pianist Wenjiao Wang bring their artistry and international experience to Brahms’s sonatas, illuminating their balance of structural mastery and heartfelt intensity. Their interpretation underlines the works’ timeless appeal: music that is both deeply rooted in the traditions of the past and unceasingly alive in the present.