The summer of 1886 was one of the most prolific in the life of Johannes Brahms. The alpine grandeur of Lake Thun and Brahms’s buoyant holiday mood conjured up so many melodies that he declared he was “afraid to step on them”. In a few weeks’ time, Brahms produced two of his major chamber works, the Cello Sonata, op.99, and the Violin Sonata, op.100, that suits the cello delightfully. These chamber icons are aptly coupled to Schubert’s blissfully uplifting Sonata, D574. Cello virtuoso Pieter Wispelwey is at once playful and profound in these summer works, and his interpretation is, from now on, open to debate in The Interpretation Room.

Pieter Wispelwey and Paulo Giacometti will record the complete chamber duos by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms on 6 CDs.

Wispelwey and Giacometti have been called “exceptionally imaginative and impassioned performers” (American Record Guide), and their collaboration has spawned recordings rated as “fascinating, provocative, almost perverse” on account of their “immediacy and involvement” (Sunday Times).