Many of the great virtuosos in the history of the cello have also been composers. Some, like Luigi Boccherini or Pablo Casals, have composed music of all genres. Others have concentrated on their own instrument. Of these, not all have achieved the recognition due to the quality and interest of their music. In this concert at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, the young musicians of the Aline Foriel-Destezet Chair of Cello, students of Professor Ivan Monighetti, vindicate three of these cellists/composers, much admired in Europe in the second half of the 19th century.

David Popper, a native of Prague, triumphed in Vienna as a concert pianist and taught at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. The Russian Karl Davidov was Tchaikovsky's favourite cellist. His magnificent stradivarius is played today by Yo-Yo Ma. From Belgium, Adrien Servais, father of the Belgian cello school and friend and concert companion of Vieuxtemps and Liszt, shone throughout Europe. The music of these three virtuosos alternates in this concert with two pillars of the cello repertoire, an excerpt from Johann Sebastian Bach's Suites for solo cello and Edward Elgar's Concerto in E minor, and with two transcriptions of original works for violin and piano: the last of Beethoven's ten sonatas and the Scherzo with which Brahms contributed to the collective sonata dedicated to Joseph Joachim.