Passion For Violin III
17.7K subscribers
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) – Celloconcert Nr. 1 in E-majeur, Omhoog. 107 (1959)
1. Allegretto (00:06)
2. Gematigde (07:15)
3. Cadenza – Attacca (20:55)
4. Allegro con moto (26:52)
Opnieuw: Pablo Casals – El cant dels ocells (Songs of the Birds) (33:17)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Daniele Gatti, dirigent
Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) composed both of his cello concertos for Russian cellist and all-around musical icon Mstislav Rostropovich, also the composer’s dear friend. The Cello Concerto No. 1 was completed in 1959, at a time in post-Stalinist Russia when cultural restrictions had eased somewhat – though they were by no means a thing of the past. Rostropovich gave both its Russian and American premieres later that same year. Perhaps the most popular twentieth-century cello concerto (and one of the most difficult ever of its kind), it is a deeply personal work, als gevolg van sjostakovitsj's ambivalente emoties en onzekerheden om voortdurend een "artistiek koord" te moeten bewandelen in de vaak onvoorspelbare en vaak vijandige culturele omgeving van de Sovjet-Rusland – waarin hij de ene dag wel een ballyhooed held zou kunnen zijn en de volgende dag een verguisde zondebok.
Net als een aantal van zijn andere quasi-autobiografische werken (met name zijn achtste strijkkwartet), de centrale thematische functie hier is een reeks van gelijk klinkende varianten op sjostakovitsj's kenmerkende vier-nota "DSCH" sequentie (D, E-flat, C, and B in German notation) that corresponds to the “D” of his first name followed by the first three Russian letters of his last name. This recurs in several forms – with different starting points, note sequences and intervals – throughout the work, except in the second movement. The piece is fairly lightly scored – with the only brass instrument being a single French horn, which turns out to play a vital role as the concerto progresses.
The first movement’s main theme is heard in its first four notes (G, IS, B, and B-flat) from the soloist – seeming to pose an unsettling question. From there, the music unfolds in mostly concentrated and supple fashion, maintaining a persistent aura of animated tension throughout its course. The single horn appears to emphatically reinforce the theme as the music grows in anxious intensity. The slow movement begins with a theme that, oddly, is never taken up by the cello; instead, after the horn sets up its entrance, the cello appears with its own theme. The movement proceeds with a sense of uneasy, yet lyrically elegiac reflection – with episodes of typical Russian gloom and intermittent groundswells of bleak and searing desolation.
Ensuing without pause, the unusual third movement is actually an extended solo cadenza that – at first – maintains the preceding movement’s melancholic mood in its pensive soliloquy. But then it gradually rises in tempo and intensity, setting up – again without pause – the compact, rondo-like finale in which its main theme (based loosely on a Georgian folksong that Stalin had been fond of) alternates in a lively, but nervous manner with contrasting material. Vervolgens, about halfway through, the first movement’s quasi-autobiographical theme returns with a vengeance – confirmed by a mighty horn call. But the motif is no longer questioning, taking on a more positive quality as the music hurtles to a triumphant finish … even though Stalin’s Georgian tune still lurks beneath the surface in the coda. Nog, the movement is emphatically sealed by final “exclamation points” from the timpani. – Lindsay Koob
toevoegen aan favorieten
