An indispensable disc. Both recordings come from the 1950s and have a special authority, for it was Rostropovich's playing that inspired Prokofiev's work. The Miaskovsky Concerto of 1944 is one of his loveliest works and radiates an all-pervasive nostalgia, a longing for a world lost beyond recall. In sensibility, though not achievement, it almost reminds one of the Elgar and its gentle, elegiac sentiment is not skin-deep. If you put it alongside Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto written only three years later, it seems not of its time, but there is an authenticity of feeling here that is no less telling than in the Shostakovich. The working-out may not be innovative and the idiom is hardly more 'advanced' than Glazunov but in its very simplidty lies its poignancy. When the late Boris Schwarz spoke of ''the depth of Miaskovsky'', I suspect that it was this work that was uppermost in his mind. It could not be played with greater eloquence and restraint than it is by Rostropovich. It was originally coupled with the Saint-Saens A minor and then subsequently appeared in harness with David Oistrakh's version of the Prokofiev Second Violin Concerto.
The Sinfonia Concertante, a reworking of the E minor Cello Concerto, came into being after the war when Prokofiev heard the young Rostropovich play it. Although he first called it Concerto No. 2, he subsequently had second thoughts and chose the present title without ever rejecting or disowning the earlier concerto. He described the new piece as ''a reworking of the material of the first, made in collaboration with Mstislav Rostropovich''. There is greater opportunity for virtuoso display in the present version, and Prokofiev expands on the Theme and Variations of the Concerto. Much of the Sinfonia Concertante is too close to the earlier work for it to be regarded as completely separate; I regret one or two changes in the second movement but the third movement undoubtedly has greater coherence in its revised and extended form. This was Rostropovich's first recording of it in the West, and like the Miaskovsky, it almost sounds as if it was made yesterday. I have sampled both recordings alongside the last LP transfers to appear and while there is a gain in body and richness, there is no loss of warmth. A self-recommending disc.'