The 1963 Cello Symphony is perhaps one of the most forbidding and enigmatic of all Britten's works, hardly a repertory piece even now. Pieter Wispelwey's notes to his recording suggest he has a sense ...
Despite the cold war, Britten developed an important circle of Russian-Soviet friendships in the early 1960s, among whom was the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. After hearing "Slava" play the ...