Though the name of Victor Herbert is nowadays associated above all with Broadway musicals like Naughty Marietta, Herbert was in fact a multitalented musician, one of the world’s leading cello virtuosos of the time and the composer of two cello concertos which greatly influenced Dvorák in the United States to write his supreme masterpiece. That makes this coupling of Dvorák’s Cello Concerto with the second and finer of Herbert’s an apt one, and Gautier Capuçon gives distinctive, characterful and intense performances of both works, well supported by Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt orchestra, especially strong in its brass section.

It is Capuçon’s gift to play with warm intensity while keeping a relatively steady pulse. That applies in both works, and a comparison with Lynn Harrell in the Herbert (Decca, 10/88 – nla) demonstrates how much freer the American cellist is in his moulding of tempo and phrase, compared with the relative purity and simplicity of Capuçon. That makes the central slow movement of the Herbert deeply elegiac. Curiously, Harrell inserts a cadenza in the finale, presumably of his own composition, while Capuçon does not have that extra section, presumably when the score gives the soloist an option.

In the Dvorák the fruity-toned Frankfurt horn gives a beautiful account of the great second-subject melody even though it is dangerously slow. In the exposition with soloist, Capuçon takes that section a fraction faster and the result is magical. As in the Herbert the slow movement is deeply elegiac, while the incisive finale leads to a dedicated account of the beautiful epilogue. Altogether a version of this much-recorded work which stands comparison with any in the catalogue, made the more attractive by the coupling.