The expressive vitality in this collection of violin sonatas transcends the cultural upheavals from which these three Ukrainian composers emerged. Bortkiewicz's Violin Sonata in G minor is among the most impressive of his relatively few chamber works, finding his musical language at its most vivid and directly communicative. Kosenko's Violin Sonata in A minor is notable for the satisfying balance of its two subtly differentiated movements. Skoryk's Second Violin Sonata is a stylistically diverse chamber work, with pointed allusions to Beethoven, Prokofiev and Gershwin during its compact and always eventiul course.

Collectors of our Romantic Piano Concertos will already know the name of Sergei Bortkiewicz and just a small something of what to expect of this first recording of his two symphonies. Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish played the First Symphony in a public concert the day before this recording was made. Here is what The Glasgow Herald said of the occasion: "Last night the one-man Tchaikovsky tribute band, Sergei Bortkiewicz, roared into town with his first symphony and left the BBC SSO, conductor Martyn Brabbins, and the audience, with grins as wide as the Volga fabulous orchestration, thoroughgoing craftsmanship, and an exuberant panache that raised the whole thing several storeys above mere pastiche. It's a dazzling, hugely enjoyable barnstormer with a gorgeous slow movement (containing an oboe theme to die for), and a punch line so familiar, yet so unexpected, that it's uproarious. Someone tell the London gaffer to put this in the Promsit would blow the audience clean away."

Anton Stepanovich Arensky and Sergei Eduardovich Bortkiewicz are hardly household names. Arensky’s delicious Piano Trio in D minor continues to keep its place on the fringes of the chamber repertoire, and the Waltz movement from his Suite for two pianos receives an occasional outing; otherwise nothing. Who has even heard of Bortkiewicz other than aficionados of the piano’s dustier repertoire?