The sonatas performed on this captivating disc by the cellist Marcy Rosen and pianist Susan Walters came from the minds of composers most often associated with large-scale works. Even so, the intimate pieces presented here find Richard Strauss and Edvard Grieg in assured and often inspired form.

Strauss was all of 18 when he composed the Sonata in F major, Op 6. The score reveals a young man of formidable artistic gifts, however indebted the writing may be to past composers, especially Mendelssohn. Each movement evinces Strauss’s ability to spin melodic material of considerable appeal and even lusciousness, while also building cogent structures. The music is by turns sweeping, poignant and impish, qualities Rosen – a cellist of grand and subtle expressivity – and Walters set forth with uncommon vibrancy.

Grieg’s Sonata in A minor, Op 36, is the product of a composer already established in other genres. The piece contains several themes found in other Grieg scores that are imbued in the new contexts with fresh, folk-like allure. The first movement has hints of the composer’s Piano Concerto (from 16 years earlier), while the slow movement moves with quiet eloquence and the finale kicks up its heels by way of dramatic jolts and high spirits.

As in the Strauss, Rosen and Walters bring great depth of phrasing and attack to Grieg’s only work for this pairing. ‘Grieg tended to disparage the cello sonata’, Steven Ledbetter writes in his fine booklet notes, which makes it ever so bittersweet that he didn’t attempt another.