Schumann's Stucke im Volkston, Op. 102 are engaging enough, and on Nimbus Alexander Michejew responds well to the changing moods, sensibly taking them at face value. Mischa Maisky, on this new recording, sometimes fails to create a unified impression, and the initial number, ''Mit Humor'', sounds like bits of several unrelated pieces. The second and third items in this set dawdle though Maisky produces an agreeable sound. In these and the other Schumann Stucke, Op. 73 Jacqueline du Pre (on HMV) and Michejew have the support of regular accompanists in Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons respectively, whereas in Argerich Maisky has a pianist with a strong personality of her own and this apparently unsettles things. The last two pieces of Op. 102 are necessarily more lively than the rest, but the piano is sometimes unduly prominent.
However, the same could be said of many passages in the du Pre/Moore account of Schumann's Op. 73. This cellist is too retiring in Nos. 1 and 2, though more assertive in the final ''Rasch und mit Feuer''. Michejew takes a more positive line from the start with these Soireestucke, as, in a barbarous mixture of languages, they were initially called. Both he and Parsons react acutely to the conversations between the cello's lines and the melodies which crystallize out of the flowing piano figuration. Heard immediately afterwards, Maisky and Argerich sound badly under-motivated, though here as in their other pieces they are excellently recorded.
Schubert's Sonata is a tuneful and unpretentious work that cellists must enjoy playing, to judge from the frequency with which it turns up in recital programmes. All three movements ramble, yet Paul Tortelier (on HMV) shapes them purposefully. In the outer movements he does this partly through adopting tempos generally faster than those prescribed by the composer. In comparison, the Maisky/Argerich performance often sounds too leisurely, and scarcely holds one's interest.'