Cello Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)
The Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Opus 107, was composed in 1959 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days and gave the premiere on October 4, 1959, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in the Large Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory. The first recording was made in two days following the premiere by Rostropovich and the Moscow Philharmonic, under the baton of Aleksandr Gauk.[1]
Scoring and structure
The concerto is scored for solo cello, two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets (each doubling B-flat and A), two bassoons (2nd doubling contrabassoon), one horn, timpani, celesta, and strings.
The work has four movements in two sections, with movements two through four played without a pause:
A typical performance runs approximately 28 minutes in length.
Analysis
The first concerto is widely considered to be one of the most difficult concerted works for cello, along with the Sinfonia Concertante of Sergei Prokofiev, with which it shares certain features (such as the prominent role of isolated timpani strokes). Shostakovich said that "an impulse" for the piece was provided by his admiration for that earlier work.[2]
The first movement begins with its four-note main theme derived from the composer's DSCH motif, although the intervals, rhythm and shape of the motto are continually distorted and re-shaped throughout the movement. It is also related to a theme from the composer's score for the 1948 film The Young Guard, which illustrates a group of Soviet soldiers being marched to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis. The theme reappears in Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 (1960). It is set beside an even simpler theme in the woodwind, which reappears throughout the work:
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/Shostvcquote1.jpg/600px-Shostvcquote1.jpg)
The woodwind theme taking on aspects of the DSCH theme itself just before the introduction of the second subject:
The DSCH motive recurs throughout the concerto (except in the second movement), giving this concerto a cyclic structure.
One further theme (at bar 96), originating in folk lullabies, is also found in the lullaby sung by Death to a sick child in Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death.
The second, third and fourth movements are played continuously. The second movement is initially elegiac in tone. The string section begins with a quiet theme that is never played by the solo cello. The horn answers and the solo cello begins a new theme. The orchestra plays it after and the first theme is played again. The cello plays its second theme, which progressively becomes more agitated, building to a climax in bar 148. This is immediately followed by the first theme played loudly. The solo cello plays the its first melody in artificial harmonics with answers by the celesta, which leads into the cadenza. The second movement is the only movement with no reference to the DSCH motive.
The cadenza stands as a movement in itself. It begins by developing the material from the cello's second theme of the second movement, twice broken by a series of slow pizzicato chords. After the second time this is repeated, the cello's first theme of the second movement is played in an altered form. After the third time the chords are repeated, a continual accelerando passes through allegretto and allegro sections to a piu mosso section. These sections are frequented by the first DSCH motive. The piu mosso section features fast ascending and descending scales.
The final movement begins with an ascent to a high D. The oboe begins the main theme, which is based on the chromatic scale. The cello repeats it, and presents a new theme. The cellos of the orchestra repeat this, accompanied by the solo cello playing fast sixteenth notes. At bar 105, a distorted version of Suliko, a song favoured by Stalin and used by Shostakovich in Rayok, his satire on the Soviet system, is played. Then, the flutes play the first theme again. A new theme played in triple time is presented by the orchestra, which is repeated by the cello. Then, the orchestra repeats and alters the theme. The horn, bass instruments and solo cello follow. The bass instruments play a modified version of the theme, which is repeated by the solo cello after. The cello begins playing a new theme that uses exactly the same notes as the DSCH motif. The modified version that was just played by bass instruments is repeated by the solo cello, accompanied by oboes playing fragments of the new DSCH theme. The first theme of this movement is played by the string section after, followed by the new DSCH theme in the woodwinds. The DSCH theme of the first movement is played, answered by the cello. After the third time this is played, the horn plays the theme again in longer notes. Then, the cello plays a passage from the first movement, which is followed by the first theme of this movement played by the woodwinds. This is followed by the first theme of the first movement played by the cellos of the orchestra, accompanied by scales in the solo cello. Then, a modified form of the first theme of this movement is played in the cello. The concerto ends with seven timpani strokes.
Recordings
Recordings of this work include the following:
- Han-Na Chang/London Symphony Orchestra/Antonio Pappano (EMI Classics)[3]
- Heinrich Schiff/Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Maxim Shostakovich (Philips)[4]
- Heinrich Schiff/Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Christoph von Dohnányi (Fachmann für Klassischer Musik)
- Daniel Müller-Schott/Bavarian Radio Symphony/Yakov Kreizberg (Orfeo)
- Johannes Moser/Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra (WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln)/Pietari Inkinen (Hanssler Classic)
- Natalia Gutman/USSR Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra/(Kyril or Kirill) Kyrill Kondrashin (Live Classics) Recorded 21 June 1976[5][6]
- Natalia Gutman/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov (RCA/BMG) Recorded 1988
- Zuill Bailey/San Francisco Ballet Orchestra/Martin West (Telarc)
- Truls Mørk/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (Virgin Classics)
- Mischa Maisky/London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Yo Yo Ma/Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy (Sony)
- it/Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda (Chandos)
- Peter Wispelwey/pl /Jurgen Hempel (Channel Classics)
- Lynn Harrell/Seattle Symphony/Gerard Schwarz (Artek)
- pl /Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Valek (Le Chant du Monde)
- Rafał Kwiatkowski/Polish Radio Orchestra (pl )/Wojciech Rajski (Dux)
- sv /Russian State Symphony Orchestra/Valery Polyansky (Chandos)
- Kyril Rodin/Russian Philharmonic Orchestra/Konstantin Krimets (Arte Nova Classics)
- Viviane Spanoghe/Sofia Soloists Symphony Orchestra/Emil Tabakov (Talent)
- sv /Malmö Symphony Orchestra/James DePreist (BIS)
- Maria Kliegel/Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit (Naxos Records)
- Dimitri Maslennikov/NDR Symphony Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach (Phoenix Edition)
- Kim Cook/Volgograd Symphony Orchestra/Edward Serov (MSR Classics)
- Raphael Wallfisch/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins (Nimbus)
- Mstislav Rostropovich/Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy (Sony Classical) world-premier recording
- Mstislav Rostropovich/Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/Kyrill Kondrashin (Intaglio) poor audio quality[7]
- Janos Starker/Swiss-Italian Radio & TV Orchestra - Orchestra della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana/Marc Andreae (Ermitage)
- Vladimir Orloff/Orchestre Philharmonique de l'O.R.T.F., Paris/fr (Doremi) broadcast recording
- Alexander Baillie/Boston Philharmonic Orchestra/Benjamin Zander (Carlton Classics)
- Jiří Bárta/Prague Symphony Orchestra/Maxim Shostakovich (Supraphon)
- Valentin Feigin/USSR TV and Radio Symphony Orchestra/Maxim Shostakovich (Melodiya)
- William De Rosa/Ekaterinburg Philharmonic Orchestra/Sarah Caldwell (Audiofon)
- Mark Drobinsky/Kazan Symphony Orchestra/Fuat Mansurov (Talent)
- Mikhail Khomitser/USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra/Gennady Rozhdestvensky (RCA)
- Carlos Prieto/Orquestra Sinfonica de Xalapa/Luis Herrera de la Fuente (IMP Classics)
- Nathaniel Rosen/Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra/Emil Tabakov (John Marks Records)
- (Natalya) Natalia Shakhovskaya/Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra/Gennady Rozhdestvensky (BBC)
- fr //Sinfonia Varsovia/János Fürst (RCA)
- Pierre Fournier/Suisse Romande Orchestra/Jascha Horenstein (Cascavelle)
- Miloš Sádlo/Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Karel Ančerl (Supraphon)
- Paul Tortelier/Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Berglund (EMI)
- Daniel Shafran/Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/Konstantin Ivanov (Regis Reissue)
- Pierre Strauch/Le Sinfonietta Orchestre Régional de Picardie/Alexandre Myrat (Harmonia Mundi)
- Alexander Ivashkin/Moscow Symphony Orchestra/Valeri Polyansky (Brilliant Classics)
- Claudio Bohórquez/Staatliches Symphony Orchestra Kaliningrad-Konigsberg/Arkadi Feldmann (Antes Edition / Bella Musica)
- Gavriel Lipkind/Sinfonia Varsovia/Wojciech Rodek (Lipkind Productions) Download only
- Jan Vogler/Jan Vogler and The Knights Experience (ensemble) (Sony Classical) an unconventional rendition
References
- Notes
- ^ “Rostropovich Plays Shostakovich.” Liner notes. Supraphon, 2013. CD.
- ^ Shostakovich was quoted in Sovetskaya Kultura, June 6, 1959
- ^ "‘Blistering’ is the single word which remained rattling around in my skull after an initial run though of this disc." -Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
- ^ Schiff was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording Heinrich Schiff website
- ^ Gutman's 1976 recording with Kondrashin is superior to her 1988 recording with Temirkanov according to a review in DSCH Journal by Louis Blois.
- ^ BBC Radio 3's Building a Library: Shostakovich feature (circa 2005-2007) ranked this recording as the first choice for Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No.1
- ^ "cassette-quality sound" according to Louis Blois writing in DSCH Journal
- Sources
- Johnson, Stephen (18 March 2006). Discovering Music: Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No 1 on BBC Radio 3.
- Shostakovich, Dmitri (1959, reprinted 1986). Cello Concertos (volume 17 of collected works). State Publishers 'Music', Moscow.
External links
- Dmitry Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1, program notes by Barbara Heninger for the Redwood Symphony.