This release provides a comprehensive survey of the art of Gregor Piatigorsky from the 1930s to the 1950s. The outstanding representative of the Russian cello school in the generation before Rostropovich, and hailed by Rubinstein as “certainly the best cellist I had heard since Casals”, Piatigorsky performed all around the world, winning the respect of his peers. Since the record companies considered cellists to be less important than violinists, Piatigorsky received few invitations to record concertos. The Schumann Concerto, Piatigorsky’s only pre-war recording of a complete orchestral work, amply demonstrates his ‘speaking’ tone and virtuoso technique. At the end the oboist Leon Goossens could not resist uttering an audible “Bravo!”, picked up by the microphones.