It takes remarkable powers of concentration for a performer to sustain nearly an hour of solo cello music without any support from an accompanying instrument. In this formidable sequence of works the young Russian cellist Boris Andrianov does that triumphantly, starting with the most demanding cello work of all after Bach, the Solo Sonata of Zoltán Kodály.

Each of the three movements lasts around 10 minutes, testing the cellist to the limit in one of the most powerful works that Kodály ever wrote. The depth of Andrianov’s concentration can readily be measured by the exceptionally slow tempo he adopts in the central Adagio, with no hint of tension slipping. That leads to a dazzling account of the finale, in which Andrianov brings out the strong Hungarian flavours to the full.

The Russian Fragments of Rodion Shchedrin bring much lighter fare, a charming sequence demonstrating his style at its most approachable. Alone by the Sicilian cellist Giovanni Sollima was written for a cello competition in Milan and it certainly tests the performer to the limit in music both slow and fast, with Andrianov relishing the challenge.

The Improvisation of Alfred Schnittke brings a sequence of striking ideas that make great demands on the cellist, while the well-known folk-based Song of the Birds by Pablo Casals – the cellist who more than any other transformed attitudes to the instrument – brings a performance notably purer than those of Casals himself, at least in his last years. It makes an intensely beautiful close to a most impressive recital, very well recorded in a German church.