Shostakovich: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

This is the premiere recording of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under their new artistic director Vasily Petrenko. Vasily Petrenko is renowned as a star conductor of the younger generation and one of the foremost interpreters of Shostakovich’s symphonies. Truls Mørk is one of the most respected and prestigious cellists playing today, forged by a reputation of fierce intensity and grace in performances throughout the world. A committed performer of contemporary music, Mørk gave the UK premiere of Rautavaara’s cello concerto Towards the Horizon and whose recording on Ondine won both the Gramophone and ICMA Awards. Shostakovich’s cello concertos were written for Mstislav Rostropovich during the 50s and 60s. Besides dashing virtuosity, the concertos also include substantial symphonic elements. Shostakovich’s Cello Concertos were inspired by the artistry of Mstislav Rostropovich (1927–2007), who first met the composer while at the Moscow Conservatoire. Almost four decades after Shostakovich’s death, both of these concertos have become firmly established in the concert hall, yet they are highly contrasted in matters of form and also expression. Rostropovich had long hoped Shostakovich would write a concerto for him, but was apparently taken by surprise when, on 6th June 1959, the composer announced that such was to be his next major work. The full score was completed on July 20th - Rostropovich receiving it on August 2nd and having already learnt it when he and his pianist Alexander Dedyukhin played it through to the composer four days later. Following a hearing at the Composers Union on 21st September, its official premiere took place in Leningrad on 4th October with Rostropovich accompanied by Yevgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra; the Moscow premiere, with Alexander Gauk and the Moscow Philharmonic, occurred five days later. Its Western premiere came on 6th November in Philadelphia, with Rostropovich partnered by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra – these artists then going on to make the first recording. While very different in its style and conception, the First Cello Concerto was inspired by the Symphony-Concerto that Prokofiev had earlier written in collaboration with Rostropovich – not least its ending with a timpani stroke which Shostakovich duly increased sevenfold. Also notable is its modesty of orchestral forces - double woodwind (with piccolo and contrabassoon) and one horn with timpani, celesta and strings – and that it was the composer’s only mature conducting assignment when he conducted it (along with the Festive Overture) in Gorky on 12th November 1962 with Rostropovich and the Gorky Philharmonic, though an increasing weakness in his right hand ruled out any future ventures. The first movement opens with a lively march-like theme in which the soloist is complemented by laconic comments on woodwind then strings, before heading into an equally animated theme with woodwind now taking the lead. A compact development is announced by horn sounding out the first theme, whereupon elements of both themes are made the basis of an intensive dialogue between soloist and orchestra – the horn eventually launching a modified reprise in which the soloist now claims the second theme. The brief coda brings a sudden hush while the first theme is restated by the soloist against anxious phrases on woodwind, before a peremptory allusion to the second theme brings about the decisive close. The other three movements proceed without pause. The Adagio begins with a hymn-like theme on strings and continues with a wistful theme for the soloist against undulating strings. The first theme is recalled, the soloist then engaging with rocking woodwind gestures as the music gradually builds in emotional intensity toward a climactic restatement of the first theme. This subsides into a recollection of the second theme shared between the soloist’s ghostly harmonics and disembodied phrases on celesta, the former being underpinned by lower strings and timpani in a fateful conclusion. The third movement is allotted to an extensive cadenza that initially unfolds in sombre paragraphs, marked off by detached pizzicato chords, which allude to both themes from the Adagio as they slowly gain in momentum and culminate in the heightened restatement of the first theme from the opening movement. Brusque chords from the orchestra lead into the finale, which opens with a sardonic folk tune (apparently beloved of Stalin) on woodwind then passes into a hectic dance theme made more so by hectic syncopation. The return of the first theme is followed by a rhythmic idea for strings then the soloist, in which elements of the work’s initial theme can be detected on horn then woodwind. This latter theme brakes free as the finale’s first theme is recalled and the strenuous interplay is rounded off by a volley of timpani strokes. The next seven years saw various important works – including the Twelfth and Thirteenth Symphonies, the cantata The Execution of Stepan Razin and the String Quartets Nos. 7–11. The very different nature of the Second Cello Concerto can be gleaned from Shostakovich’s remark on 16th February 1966 that he had begun work on his Fourteenth Symphony, only to announce just over a month afterwards this had mutated into a cello concerto. Despite problems with the finale, the piece was finished on 27th April while he was staying near Yalta; Rostropovich, who advised on certain technical aspects, rehearsing it there with the composer in May. Despite his having suffered a heart attack, Shostakovich attended its premiere in Moscow on 25th September – Rostropovich joined by Yevgeny Svetlanov and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. The Leningrad premiere took place during November with Nikolai Rabinovich conducting the Conservatoire orchestra, and the Western premiere in London on 5th October 1967 with Colin Davis in charge of the BBC Symphony. Despite the warm reception of these performances and appreciation by other composers (not least Benjamin Britten), the Second Cello Concerto – which has double woodwind (three bassoons) and two horns alongside timpani, a sizable percussion section and string (two harps) - long remainedin its predecessor’s shadow. The first studio recording did not take place until November 1975, with Rostropovich partnered by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, while performances and recordings only latterly became more frequent. At the present time, however, the concerto’s formally and expressively more oblique qualities have commended themselves to a wider and more sympathetic audience. The first movement is an extensive Largo which opens with the soloist in musing soliloquy, strings then woodwind gradually entering as the music takes on a greater emotional fervour and culminates in a forceful outburst from horns and woodwind. The soloist’s impassioned interjection brings a more subdued, even confessional manner that is underpinned by strings and harps, which is at length broken by a sardonic idea on woodwind and percussion that soon rouses the soloist to a lively response. This increasing animation rapidly draws in the whole orchestra, leading to a climax where the soloist’s vehement protestations in (a mixture of bowed and pizzicato phrases) are summarily cowed by brutal strokes on bass drum – a graphic gesture that was not lost on early audiences. Having retreated, the soloist resumes its confessional manner as the music recollects earlier themes while gradually returning to the sombre depths from which it had emerged. The remaining movements, both marked Allegretto, might be thought a formal as well as expressive unity. The first is a brief scherzo, opening with stuttered gestures from the soloist that coalesce into a capricious and folk-like theme which draws the orchestra into an increasingly heated dialogue and whose culmination brings a vaunting fanfare on horns and side-drum that marks the start of the finale. This fanfare passes to the soloist and tambourine, subsiding onto an eloquent cadence-like gesture that serves as a refrain over the movement as a whole. There follows a haunting theme for the soloist and flutes over rocking strings, then a quizzical idea for the soloist against a syncopated percussion pattern (recalling the Fourth Symphony’s second movement and anticipating the Fifteenth Symphony’s finale). The fanfare idea is recalled on horns; these various elements gradually building to a visceral climax on the second movement’s opening theme with horns and percussion to the fore. It tails off as the soloist wearily recalls the confessional music from the first movement, but this is succeeded by a spectral interplay between soloist and percussion – with the former having the mordant final word. Richard Whitehouse