By choosing two of the most demanding works in the solo cello repertory for his recording debut, Matthew Zalkind seems to be laying all his cards on the table – and I’m delighted to report that he shows a winning hand. The American cellist’s interpretation of Bach’s Sixth Suite (played on a traditional four-string instrument rather than the five-string violoncello piccolo) is sensitively phrased, shaped not only according to the music’s variegated melodic topography but also in accordance with its harmonic ebb and flow. Zalkind has a warm tone and excellent intonation, his generous application of legato doesn’t preclude clear articulation and his supple and expressive rubato harks back to Casals’s pioneering account. I’m deeply touched by his rapt playing in the Allemande, as well as by his heartfelt reading of the Sarabande – listen, for instance, to how he caresses the double-stops at 2'08". But what impresses me most is the sheer joyousness he communicates in every movement.

In Kodály’s sprawling Sonata, Zalkind’s fevour isn’t as incendiary as, say, Bengtsson (Danacord) or Weilerstein (Decca, 1/15). He takes his time in the opening Allegro maestoso ma appassionato, really taking the maestoso directive to heart. Indeed, there’s an epic quality to Zalkind’s reading, and his plaintive tone in high-lying lyrical passages has an almost keening quality that carries an unexpected whiff of tragedy. The Adagio, too, is conceived on a grand scale, starting with a fearsome, slow crescendo. He seems to think of phrasing in terms of gestures that make both rhetorical and dramatic sense, and in the finale this thoughtfulness is evident in the way he picks up and carries melodic threads through the music’s intricate fabric.

Michael Brown’s Bach-inspired Suite sounds a little flimsy placed between these two masterworks but works well enough as an interlude. The second movement, an ‘Improvisational Sarabande’, uses repetition on both a large and small scale to create a clever house of mirrors, but it’s the herky-jerky energy of the final Gigue that satisfies most. Zalkind plays it with conviction. All in all, this is a most auspicious debut.