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The modern string instrument with the widest range is the cello, and that is true as a range of expressiveness, not just in terms of the notes it can produce. If there is one work that showed beyond a doubt just how much the cello could do, it was Dvořák’s monumental concerto, whose communicative powers remain unmatched more than a century later – but not for lack of trying. Many composers today, including the six on the new Navona CD called Moto Perpetuo, are fully aware of the cello’s capabilities and are determined to plumb them. They do so with varying success. Andrew March’s Three Pieces for Solo Cello is primarily interested in the instrument’s dusky hue and its capabilities of communicating thoughtfulness, especially in the last and longest piece, “To Reflect in a Quiet Spot.” Greg Bartholomew’s brief Beneath the Apple Tree mixes Ovidiu Marinescu’s cello with Kim Trolier’s flute in a pleasant combination of contrasting sonorities. Alan Beeler contributes three works here and shows himself as a miniaturist: Dance Suite for Violin and Cello and One Good Turn Deserves Another each contain four movements, with none of them lasting as much as two minutes and both groupings being more lighthearted than cello music often tends to be. Variations on Re-Do-Mi is equally tied into traditional musical forms and, at three-and-a-half minutes, comparatively substantial. Bill Sherrill’s Divertimento for Strings places the cello in the context of all other modern orchestral string instruments, complementing it with violins (Sylvia Ahramjian and Dana Weiderhold), viola (Scott Wagner) and double bass (Charles J. Muench). Warmth within an overlay of gloom is communicated by Arthur Gottschalk’s Sonata for Cello and Piano: In Memoriam, a substantial work in which Marinescu and pianist Janet Ahlquist explore the depths of their respective instruments. The two are joined by violinist Ahramjian for the final work on the CD, Nicholas Anthony Ascioti’s Adirondack Meditation, which returns the mood to that of the disc’s beginning and reestablishes the cello’s meditative soulfulness as one of its most salient characteristics.