The idea has long appealed to me of supplementing the limited repertory of cello concertos with orchestrations of suitable cello sonatas. Top of my list has been the magnificent Rachmaninov Sonata‚ dating from the great period of the Second Symphony and Second Piano Concerto. Now Joseph Horovitz and Benjamin Wallfisch in their orchestration of the Grieg Sonata have triumphantly demonstrated how viable the idea is. With instrumentation which regularly echoes Grieg’s own example‚ the result is not just more colourful than the original with piano‚ but actually sounds more distinctively Grieg­like. One registers even more clearly than usual the musical fingerprints that mark the Grieg style‚ whether the use of repeated dactylic rhythms (a stressed beat followed by two light ones)‚ fast as well as slow‚ or the characteristic start of melodies on three stressed notes‚ repeated‚ followed by a triplet. The main fear with such an idea must be that the solo instrument will be drowned. Whether with the help of shrewd recording balance or not‚ that is no problem here in a recording both atmospheric and finely detailed. The separation of the cello from its accompaniment is even clearer than it is with piano‚ as witnessed in Steven Isserlis’s superb RCA recording of the sonata (4/96). With Vernon Handley drawing warmly committed‚ idiomatic playing from the LPO‚ Raphael Wallfisch brings out the epic quality as well as the tenderness in the writing of a piece that reflects the composer’s joy in returning to composition after an involuntary fallow period. The other orchestrations‚ all of works originally conceived in song form‚ make the ideal coupling‚ with the cello in Wallfisch’s hands bringing out the gravity as well as the poignancy of these generally slow pieces. Again Benjamin Wallfisch nicely echoes Grieg’s own tricks of orchestration‚ though I am less happy about the way that Michael Freyhan in his orchestration of Grieg’s most popular song‚ Ich liebe dich‚ has woodwind solos doubling the cello’s melodic line‚ so getting in the way. Some may feel that there is not enough variety in the eight extra items‚ but on any count these include Grieg’s most haunting melodies‚ here made the more intense through the contribution of the solo cello.