Kabalevsky

For the first half, he joined three otherworldly impromptus — Drei Klavierstücke, Opus 946 — written in Schubert’s last months with the Third Sonata by the neglected Soviet composer Dmitri Kabalevsky.

Kabalevsky succumbed to Stalin’s decrees against formalistic art, and he has never been taken seriously in the West.

In fact, the extensive programming of Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Kabalevsky has had repercussions in our consulates and has got all the ‘bright boys’ in Europe saying that we are playing Russians because we have no composers of our own.

His solo career saw him combine the classical stalwarts with first performances: he gave the first UK performances of the Violin Concerto by Dmitri Kabalevsky and the Violin Sonata by Dmitri Shostakovich, and was also responsible for the premiere of the Violin Concerto by Nikolas Skalkottas at the Athens festival and the first performance of the Mendelssohn concerto on television.

He brings the same sense of exploration to the cello repertoire: he has performed such oddities as the concerti of Dmitri Kabalevsky and Gerald Finzi, plus his own transcription of the Brahms D minor violin sonata.