At age 68, Starker's sheer beauty of sound and dignified naturalness of phrasing are more refined than ever. Brahms’s two cello sonatas provide the instrument...

At age 68, Starker's sheer beauty of sound and dignified naturalness of phrasing are more refined than ever.

Brahms’s two cello sonatas provide the instrument with some of its most serious chamber music and thus a window on an artist’s maturity... Starker, though 68 at the time of his recording, is still articulate as only those with an exceptional technique can be and, if anything, the sheer beauty of his sound and the dignified naturalness of his phrasing are now even more refined... Starker certainly has the tools: a Goffriller cello, excellent recording quality and a magnificent pianist in Rudolf Buchbinder... [Schumann's] Adagio and Allegro in Starker’s hands has never seen so jubilant a storm – Eusebius and Florestan enacted.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine