Here is pleasant romantic fare, nicely performed and generally well recorded. Karl Yulyevich Davidov (1838-89) was a cello prodigy who graduated from the Moscow University as a mathematician, served as a professor at the then newly formed St Petersburg Conservatoire, played cello in a string quartet that numbered among its ranks, at one time or another, Leopold Auer and Henryk Wieniawski, and was described by Tchaikovsky as “the king of all nineteenth-century cellists”. Davidov’s music is undemanding, conventional and plainly derivative of, among others, Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Paganini and Spohr. Perhaps his best-known piece is “At the fountain” from his Op. 20, a charming morceau that Feuermann recorded back in 1939 (currently available on Biddulph). His First Cello Concerto features a tuneful though simply constructed “Cantilena” central movement while the second – and more interesting – of the two concertos is especially influenced by Mendelssohn. Again, a song-like slow movement is flanked either side by varieties of musical convention and (as in the First Concerto) the solo writing poses numerous technical challenges.
Performing Davidov concertos (there are four in all) requires both considerable stamina and an attractive tone. The young, prize-winning cello virtuoso Marina Tarasova certainly weaves an elegant musical line – not quite as lustrous as the great Daniil Shafran on an incomplete 1949 recording of the Second Concerto (under Mravinsky, now available on Russian Disc), but sweet and well-rounded. Some of Davidov’s high double-stopped playing finds her struggling somewhat and hypercritical commentators will complain at the Davidov Symphony Orchestra’s limp tuttis, but, taken overall, performances of both concertos more than pass muster.
Cellists in search of attractive ‘encore’ material will also enjoy the various short pieces with piano, Op. 30 especially. Per Skans provides some informative and highly readable annotation.'