One of the greatest and by far the best known cellist of his generation, Pablo Casals recorded a series of encore pieces between 1925 and 1930, at the height of his powers. In them we catch much of the essence of Casals’s playing: the uninhibited rhythm, the melting combination of tone and phrasing, and a subtly varied vibrato. Newly mastered from the original pressings, this disc includes some performances never issued on 78 rpm record (MacDowell and Bruch), and should come as a revelation to those who know the long-lived cellist only from his later recordings.