Hans Pfitzner's later music suggests that he identified closely with the imprisoned soldier in a poem by C. F. Meyer which he set in 1923, and to which he alludes in his Op. 52 Cello Concerto of 1943. The soldier praises the dungeon which confines him, and Pfitzner likewise seems to rejoice in the constraints of an anti-modernist romanticism which excludes any associations with a manner much more progressive than that of Schumann.
The technical strengths of Pfitzner's early style are clear in the concerto of 1888 (rediscovered in 1975), written when the composer was only 19. Although it is saddled with an unconvincing major-key ending, the work brims with confidence and potential, displaying a sense of steadily-evolving purpose that is by no means so consistently evident in Pfitzner's more mature works. Nearly half a century later, in the single-movement G major Concerto of 1935, Pfitzner's capacity for shunning the exploration of overt psychological conflict, especially in faster episodes, is securely in place. Somehow, nevertheless, this carefully restricted emotional territory still makes for a distinctive musical experience, enhanced by the relative concision of the concerto's design.
The Op. 52 Concerto balances an expansive first movement, with a striking cadenza for cello and clarinet, against three shorter character pieces, which regress into songlike or playful regions of experience well-suited to keeping the complexities of the real world at bay. These performances, efficiently recorded, manage to find that core of personality that prevents the music from lapsing into passive introversion. David Geringas is a cellist of distinction, and Werner Andreas Albert and the Bamberg orchestra provide committed support.'