Cellist Jamie Walton and pianist Daniel Grimwood make an outstanding duo, as two earlier CDs for Signum have already demonstrated. Where those first two explored 19th-century Romantic cello sonatas, this time the theme is largely the influence of the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

When Benjamin Britten heard Rostropovich give the British premiere of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto in 1960 he asked the composer to introduce him to the cellist, thus beginning a key friendship. The first result was this Cello Sonata, given by Rostropovich and Britten at Aldeburgh in June 1961 in an impromptu recital which also involved Peter Pears. Similarly, it was when Prokofiev first heard Rostropovich play Shostakovich’s earlier Cello Sonata that he too responded by writing his Cello Sonata for him.

The Shostakovich Sonata of 1934 comes first on the disc. Though the first and longest movement of the four tends to be wayward, hardly identifiable as the work of Shostakovich, the other three movements are much more characteristic. Maybe it is that movement which has generally prevented the piece from being more popular than it is. But the wildly dancing Scherzo, the hauntingly melancholic slow movement (bearing the main emotional weight) and the jaunty finale are a delight – particularly in a performance as lively as this in the allegros and deeply intense in the slow movement. The Britten comes next and Walton and Grimwood consistently bring out the echoes of Soviet music that Britten no doubt intended as a tribute to his dedicatee. Walton sustains the distinctively fragmentary quality of the first movement perfectly, leading on to the striking pizzicato writing in the following Scherzo. Here too it is the ‘Elegie’ slow movement that bears the most emotional weight, full of dark intensity, while the jaunty march then leads into a brief Moto perpetuo fifth movement as tailpiece, bringing an emphatic close.

The Prokofiev, unlike the other two sonatas, is in three movements, each getting faster than the last. The Andante grave first movement offers a sequence of strongly contrasted sections, while the second is a march marked Moderato with a lyrical central section. The finale is a playful rondo with a ‘travelling’ theme recurring. When Prokofiev wrote the piece it was at the height of the clampdown on composers supervised by the much-feared Zhdanov, and Prokofiev, distinguished as he was, had to endure an adjudication by the guild of composers. They happily approved the work, in which the composer had aimed for a new simplicity.

The natural warmth of Walton’s playing, matching that of Rostropovich himself, is finely enhanced by the crispness and fresh focus of Grimwood’s accompaniments. Clear, well-balanced recording helps to make this a first-rate issue, with illuminating notes filling in the background behind each work.