On this Hyperion's release, Alban Gerhardt performs the three concertos by Hans Pfitzner. Pfitzner's early Cello Concerto in A minor was scorned by his teachers (although liked by the composer himself). His Cello Concerto Op.42 is a beautifully constructed work that derives its material from a lyrical cello solo heard at the very start of the work. The Cello Concerto Op.52 is dedicated to Ludwig Hoelscher, a pupil of two giants of German cello-playing: Hugo Becker and Julius Klengel. As a bonus, the recording also includes Pfitzner's Duo for violin, cello and small orchestra.

Playful yet serious, imaginative yet true to the spirit of the originals: Alban Gerhardt and the inimitable Alliage Quintett offer a wholly new perspective on a variety of favourites drawn from the cello’s established repertoire and beyond.

Wilhelm Fitzenhagen was a German cellist, composer and instructor, best known today as the dedicatee of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo theme. This release features his two triumphant concertos alongside several other original works, and his (in)famous version of the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations all performed by one of today's great German virtuosos, Alban Gerhardt.

Alban Gerhardt writes admiringly of Rostropovich and the legacy of marvellous works he inspired, but on the evidence of these extraordinary accounts of two of them, he need fear no comparisons with his great Russian forebear.