The Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was a champion of contemporary music, and aimed to encourage dozens of composers to write new works for the cello; he succeeded with Britten, who planned his Op. 65 during a trip to Greece in autumn 1960 and completed it over Christmas. Written during a productive summer in Switzerland in 1886, Brahms’s F major Cello Sonata was composed for notable 19th-century cellist Robert Hausmann, who subsequently premièred it in Vienna.