Dvořák wrote his masterly Cello Concerto in 1894-95, at the end of his American period, during which he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He had just heard Victor Herbert’s Second Cello Concerto and this overturned his previous view that the cello’s upper register was not suitable for a concerto role. It arguably remains the greatest of all Romantic cello concertos – if the Elgar is viewed as a different, nostalgic and introspective piece. Until now, the recording to recommend was the celebrated DG version featuring the partnership of Rostropovich and Karajan, ideally coupled with Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. But this wonderfully spontaneous new version by Zuill Bailey and Jun Märkl tends to sweep the board. It offers Telarc’s very best sound and the recording, made in Hibert Circle Theatre, Indianapolis, could not be more natural or better balanced (the acoustic is obviously very sympathetic). As soon as Bailey begins the introduction the ear is aware that this is a live performance, for there is both electricity and warmth in the air; and when the principal horn, Robert Danforth, plays his richly contoured main theme with such moving poetic feeling (echoed later by the soloist), one is aware that this is very special music-making. The woodwind opening of the slow movement is exquisite and Bailey plays the gently retrospective closing section of the finale with rapt concentration, catching the composer’s romantic memory of his early love for Josefina Kaunitzová (his wife’s sister-in-law).

All in all this is an unforgettable performance, and the lesser-known pair of symphonic poems, the lyrical In Nature’s Realm and the more sinister folk tale about The Water Goblin, are vividly played to make an excellent coupling. The narrative of the latter piece mirrors a Scottish folk tale about a ‘water horse’ who kidnaps a maiden and takes her down to the bottom of Loch Garve (in the Highlands), colourfully and dramatically depicted in Dvořák’s tone-poem.