Cello Concerto No. 2 comes from another world entirely, opening in a dark and somber atmosphere not dissimilar to the first movement of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. The cello offers a grim pizzicato statement of the work's main melody, a plangent tune touched by intimations of the Dies Irae. The music becomes brighter and more frenzied for the bristling scherzo, only to darken again for the powerful finale, which ends with resigned restatement of the opening melody. Raphael Wallfisch launches boldly into Kabalevsky's challenging solo writing, and his vivid projection of the music's troubled emotions is skillfully aided by Bryden Thomson and the London Philharmonic. Chandos provides sonorous, dynamically realistic recordings for both works.