A common link for all the works on this CD is the German cellist Carl Fuchs who, having been immersed in the symphonic tradition of Brahms, settled in England in 1887 and became principal cellist of the Hallé Orchestra under Hans Richter. A committed Anglophile, he found himself trapped in Germany at the outbreak of war in 1914 and was interned with Benjamin Dale and Edgar Bainton in Ruhleben. After the war Fuchs became a major advocate of British cello music: Bainton composed his Cello Sonata for him in 1924; Fuchs performed the Ireland Sonata as early as 1925 (with Ireland at the piano), was the recipient of Scott’s Ballade in 1935, and taught the young Alan Rawsthorne when a student cellist at the Royal Manchester College of Music.

Ferrand and Young certainly play with appropriate intensity across the spectrum of styles presented. At times, in the more romantically inclined canvases of the Bainton (which is an exciting addition to the repertoire, having languished in manuscript for more than 80 years) and Ireland, I longed for more clarity in the recording balance, particularly at points of greatest passion and tone; and in the more weighty, neo-classical spikiness of the Rawsthorne, the piano seemed at times to dominate a little too much. Ferrand’s best playing is in the tender, lyrical passages of the Ireland (especially of the melancholy slow movement), and in the sensuous, Frenchinspired textures of Scott’s Ballade, a real and much-neglected gem. Here the quality of sound is much more sumptuous, the instrumental admixture more homogeneous, and the sense of structure (in spite of the overall impressionist demeanour) thoroughly convincing.