Schumann’s Cello Concerto – or, if we’re being really accurate, his Konzertstück for cello with orchestral accompaniment – represents a crowded field in the recording domain. Pick a famous cellist, from its first modern champions Casals and Piatigorsky, through Isserlis and Maisky to Queyras, they’re likely to have done it; and now we can add two more eminently listenable cellists to the pile, in the shape of Kian Soltani play-directing the Camerata Salzburg for DG and Christian-Pierre La Marca with the Philharmonia under former Quatuor Ébène cellist Raphaël Merlin on Naïve.

It’s a tough ask to play-direct this flowing concerto with its (for its time) groundbreakingly symbiotic exchange between soloist and orchestra, characterised by constant tension and release. Camerata Salzburg is a savvy choice of partner for Soltani – warm, polished, entirely on home turf being play-directed – and its musicians respond to him with warmly polished fluidity. Soltani is equally polished and highly expressive himself, too, bringing all manner of detail to his colouring and articulation. Perhaps it’s precisely his head for detail, though, that has resulted in a reading that feels slightly choppy and lacking the big architectural picture, for all the songful phrasing he often brings; and I feel extra guilty for saying this in the face of his detailed, self-penned booklet note, because Soltani clearly knows and loves this concerto like the back of his hand.

Yet La Marca has chosen not just his partners well but also his role. With a cellist-composer-conductor at the helm of the buoyantly, tautly light-on-its-feet Philharmonia, all this supremely expressive, elegant player has to do is make his cello sing, which he does with detail aplenty, plus a wonderfully long sweep to his phrasing, and an overall cello-orchestra picture that has a perfect-feeling balance of push and pull, repose and fervour, melt and snap. The album as a whole is inspired by the love letters between Robert and Clara, and it feels very much as if that concept has moved beyond simply the programming to actually feeding this concerto interpretation. Listen for instance to the striking degree of passion and blend with which the second solo cello rises to duet with him in the Langsam – truly, that moment is a love letter.

Both cellists have flexed their programming muscles in interesting directions for the remainder of their albums. There’s some lovely stuff among Soltani’s all-Schumann (Robert, but Clara’s ‘Ich stand in dunklen Träumen’ tucked at the end) selection, the majority of which are transcriptions – his own for the piano-accompanied arrangements sensitively partnered by Julien Quentin, and by Michael Rot and Matthias Spindler for the orchestra-accompanied ones. With the latter, architecture is no longer a problem, and Soltani’s cello absolutely sings. The arrangements themselves take some interesting stylistic pathways, too. I especially love the way the Langsam second of the Fünf Stücke im Volkston (originally cello and piano) has been recast in a Mahlerian soundscape, from its harmonic language to the swooping lilt of its violin figures, and concertmaster Gregory Ahss rising up for a brief final, luminously loving comment. All the former lieder ring especially strongly with vocal-feeling expression and storytelling. Of the piano accompanied works, ‘Widmung’ absolutely leaps out of the stereo with its radiance, energy and colouristic range.

La Marca, in close communion with pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, offers not just a selection of self-penned Clara and Robert transcriptions, plus an interjection from their friend Brahms, but – threaded between them – four brand-new love-letter-themed commissions by contemporary composers, two male and two female: Fabien Waksman, Michelle [Barzel] Ross, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Neuburger himself. Each, couched in its own distinctive voice, takes the concept in a genuinely interesting direction. I’ve especially enjoyed the many shapes and colours of the echoes across Ross’s wistful Désenvoyé (‘Unsent’), inspired by Schumann’s hidden voices and the world of ‘unsent’ longings, with further references to Webern’s little pieces for cello and piano. Kopatchinskaja’s SMS is clever, fun and … short.

Both albums exude the sense of being labours of love. Most certainly I’ll be picking up Soltani’s again. But for me, ‘Love Letters’ is one I anticipate reaching for genuinely regularly from henceforth: creative programming (and generous, comprised of two discs), superbly performed with heart, soul and class, through interpretations ringing with the album’s underlying concept, and four fascinating additions to the repertoire to boot. It’s a genuine addition to the catalogue, which is no small achievement with Schumann’s Cello Concerto in 2025.