Not the least of Olympia’s services to the cause of Mikhail Nosyrev (1924­81) have been the essays by Per Skans‚ relating the dreadful story of his betrayal (by his teacher‚ of all people)‚ arrest‚ imprisonment in the Gulag and eventual release. Skans has even found the actual NKVD (later KGB) document rigging the trial. He also gives very lucid and fair accounts of music we should know better. Nosyrev’s four symphonies have already been recorded (Olympia‚ 1/99‚ 9/99); these two concertos are well worth adding to the lists. Shostakovich is once again something of an artistic father figure‚ as indeed he was in person to the suffering composer. The voice of Prokofiev is also to be heard in the melodic succulence of the Violin Concerto’s Andante and more than once in a sly modulation or witty swerve on to an unexpected cadence. This‚ though‚ as with some movements in the symphonies‚ is a piece that packs in almost too much invention without making the most of it. Not so the Cello Concerto‚ an altogether graver and sadder work despite the lively central theme and variations. On either side lie two beautifully sustained Adagios‚ drawing on simple melodic phrases (an important one is fairly close to the DSCH Shostakovich theme‚ but seems to spell something different) and developing them with the control that Nosyrev can often seem to lack. It is a powerful‚ moving work. Like the Violin Concerto‚ it is beautifully and sensitively played. It should find a place in the concert repertory as well as the record catalogue.