In his later years Prokofiev was troubled by the layout of a number of his earlier works, the Fourth Symphony, the Fifth Piano Sonata, and the Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 58 that he had conceived but not completed in the early 1930s while he was living in the West. These second thoughts, fuelled perhaps by the Soviet critical climate of the day about his music written while in Europe, persisted right through to his last years when he was planning to revise the Second Symphony. In the case of the Fourth, his afterthoughts are not always an improvement and much the same could be argued about the Cello Concerto to which he returned after the Second World War.
He heard the young Rostropovich play the Cello Concerto in 1947 and decided that it was unsatisfactory. The new work that arose from the ashes of the old was called the Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra. Even so some element of uncertainty must have persisted in his mind, since he did not reject or disown the earlier concerto but described the new piece as ''a reworking'' of the material of the first, made in collaboration with Mstislav Rostropovich. Indeed, far from disowning it, he even had doubts at one point in the Sinfonia Concertante itself: in fact, the published score provides an alternative episode in the middle of the finale (between figs. 15 and 22), to which recourse is rarely made: nor is it on this excellent record by Raphael Wallfisch.
Rostropovich recorded the work twice, once with the Leningrad orchestra and Sanderling (Melodiya DO3810, 4/65—nla) and in 1958 with the RPO and Sir Malcolm Sargent (EMI SXLP30266, 11/78—nla). Leinsdorf included it in his Boston Prokofiev series with Samuel Mayes (RCA SB6581, 9/64—nla) and I recall a Turnabout issue from Laszlo Varga (TV34585, 5/80—nla). Otherwise it has not been generously treated by the gramophone: none of the present-day virtuosos like Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell has got round to recording it. And the Cello Concerto has not fared any better: Janos Starker's masterly account (Columbia mono 33CX1425, 7/57—nla) was cut. This splendid new Chandos issue is the first for many years and fills an important gap in the catalogue. Wallfisch has the measure of the leisurely first movement, and gives a thoroughly committed account of the scherzo and the Theme and Variations that follow, and Neeme Jarvi lends him every support.
It is inevitable that the cello should be given a little help by the microphone (as is the case in the previous versions) but I do find it a shade too forward. The fill-up, the third suite from Romeo and Juliet, maintains the high standards of its predecessors.'