The first part of the Wigmore Hall's double Schumann celebration was devoted to the music for cello and piano. But only one of the six works Steven Isserlis and Denes Varjon played, the Five Pieces in Folkstyle Op 102, was originally intended for that combination; the rest were either alternatives suggested by the composer or arrangements by later generations.

In some cases, the reworkings are perfectly serviceable - the Märchenbilder Op 113, written for viola, sound equally effective on that instrument's close cousin, with Isserlis latching on to the pieces' almost Chopinesque wistfulness. But in both the Fantasiestücke Op 73, and the gorgeous set of Romances Op 94, intended for clarinet and oboe respectively, the absence of a reedy edge in carrying the melody proves crucial. The inevitable transpositions muddy the middle registers, and Isserlis's use of gut-strings, with their softer-edged sound, made the balance against the power of a modern Steinway problematic.

The most ambitious of the reworkings was Isserlis's own version of the Third Violin Sonata, the least played of Schumann's violin-and-piano works, and the last large-scale piece he completed. Transferring the solo lines to cello didn't solve the problems either, though it did disguise some of them, simply because a lot of the frantic figuration melted into the gentle mush of the middle registers. Just how carefully Schumann's piano writing was originally tailored to fit around the solo line in all those pieces was demonstrated by the Pieces in Folkstyle. There were no problems of balance or texture here; the cello line was always etched in sharp relief against the accompaniment, because Schumann had been careful to provide space above and below it. The music may be less sophisticated and less melodically intricate than in the other sets, but Isserlis characterised it robustly enough.