Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 107
Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. 126
Dmitry Shostakovich was born in
St Petersburg in 1906, the son of an engineer. He had his first piano lessons
from his mother when he was nine and showed such musical precocity that he was
able at the age of thirteen to enter the Petrograd Conservatory, where he had
piano lessons from Leonid Nikolayev and studied composition with the son-in-law
of Rimsky-Korsakov, Maximilian Steinberg. He continued his studies through the
difficult years of the civil war, positively encouraged by Glazunov, the director
of the Conservatory, and helping to support his family, particularly after the
death of his father in 1922, by working as a cinema pianist, in spite of his
own indifferent health, weakened by the privations of the time. He completed
his course as a pianist in 1923 and graduated in composition in 1925. His graduation
work, the First Symphony, was performed in Leningrad in May 1926 and
won considerable success, followed by performances in the years immediately
following in Berlin and in Philadelphia. As a pianist he was proficient enough
to win an honourable mention at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Shostakovich in his early career
was closely involved with the theatre, and in particular with the Leningrad
Working Youth Theatre, in musical collaboration in Meyerhold’s Moscow production
of Mayakovsky’s The Flea and in film music, notably New Babylon. His
opera The Nose, based on Gogol, was completed in 1928 and given its first
concert performance in Leningrad in June 1929, when it provoked considerable
hostility from the vociferous and increasingly powerful proponents of the cult
of the Proletarian in music and the arts. The controversy aroused was a foretaste
of difficulties to come. His ballet The Golden Age was staged without
success in Leningrad in October 1930. Orchestral compositions of these years
included a second and third symphony, each a tactful answer to politically motivated
criticism. The first of these, To October, was written in response to
a commission from the state authorities and was intended to mark the tenth anniversary
of the Revolution. The Third Symphony, completed in 1929, marked another
celebration of the regime and was subtitled The First of May.
In 1934 Shostakovich won acclaim
for his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, based on a novella
by the nineteenth century Russian writer Nikolay Leskov, and performed in Leningrad
and shortly afterwards, under the title Katerina Ismailova, in Moscow.
Leskov’s story deals with a bourgeois crime, the murder of her merchant husband
by the heroine of the title, and the opera seemed at first thoroughly acceptable
in political as well as musical terms. Its condemnation in Pravda in January
1936, apparently at the direct instigation of Stalin, was a significant and
dangerous reverse, leading to the withdrawal from rehearsal that year of his
Fourth Symphony and the composition the following year of a Fifth
Symphony, described, in terms to which Shostakovich had no overt objection,
as a Soviet artist’s creative reply to justified criticism. Performed in Leningrad
in November 1937, the symphony was warmly welcomed, allowing his reinstatement
as one of the leading Russian composers of the time.
In 1941 Shostakovich received the
Stalin prize for his Piano Quintet. In the same year Russia became involved
in war, with Hitler’s invasion of the country and the siege of Leningrad, commemorated
by Shostakovich in his Seventh Symphony, a work he had begun under siege
conditions and completed after his evacuation to Kuibyshev. Its broadcast performance
in the devastated city to which it is dedicated and subsequent performances
in allied countries had, as the authorities had intended, a strong effect on
morale in Leningrad and in Russia, and aroused emotions of patriotic sympathy
abroad.
Stricter cultural control enforced
in the years following the end of the war led, in 1948, to a further explicit
attack on Shostakovich, coupled now with Prokofiev, Myaskovsky and Khachaturian,
and branded as formalists, exhibiting anti-democratic tendencies. The official
condemnation brought, of course, social and practical difficulties. The response
of Shostakovich was to hold back certain of his compositions from public performance.
His first Violin Concerto, written for David Oistrakh, was not performed
until after the death of Stalin in 1953, when he returned to the symphony with
his Tenth, which met a mixed reception when it was first performed in
Leningrad in December 1953. His next two symphonies avoided perilous excursions
into liberalisation, the first of them celebrating The Year 1905 and
the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 in 1957, and the
second The Year 1917, completed in 1961. In 1962 there came the first
performance of the Thirteenth Symphony, with its settings of controversial
poems by Yevtushenko, and a revival of the revised version of Lady Macbeth
of the Mtsensk District, now under the title Katerina Ismailova.
The opera now proved once more acceptable.
The last dozen years of the life
of Shostakovich, during which he suffered a continuing deterioration of health,
brought intense activity as a composer, with a remarkable series of works, many
of them striving for still further simplicity and lucidity of style. The remarkable
Fourteenth Symphony of 1969, settings of poems by Apollinaire, Lorca,
Rilke and Küchelbecker, dedicated to his friend Benjamin Britten, was followed
in 1971 by the last of the fifteen symphonies, a work of some ambiguity. The
last of his fifteen string quartets was completed and performed in 1974 and
his final composition, the Viola Sonata, in July 1975. He died on 9th
August.
The career of Shostakovich must
be seen against the political and cultural background of his time and country.
Born in the year after Bloody Sunday, when peaceful demonstrators in St Petersburg
had been fired on by troops, Shostakovich had his musical education under the
new Soviet régime. His own political sympathies have been questioned and there
has been controversy particularly over the publication Testimony, The Memoirs
of Dmitry Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov, once
accused of fabrication in his portrayal of the composer as a covert enemy of
Bolshevism. The testimony of others and more recent revelations suggest that
the general tenor of Volkov’s Testimony is true enough. Shostakovich
belonged to a family of liberal tradition, whose sympathies would have lain
with the demonstrators of 1905. Under Stalinism, however, whatever initial enthusiasm
he may have felt for the new order would have evaporated with the attacks on
artistic integrity and the menacing attempts to direct all creative expression
to the aims of socialist realism. While writers and painters may express meaning
more obviously, composers have a more ambiguous art, so that the meaning of
music, if it has any meaning beyond itself, may generally be hidden. Shostakovich
learned how to wear the necessary public mask that enabled him to survive the
strictures of 1936 and 1948 without real sacrifice of artistic integrity.
Shostakovich wrote his Cello
Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Opus 107, in 1959 for the cellist Mstislav
Rostropovich, with whom he had toured in recitals that included his Cello
Sonata. Rostropovich had been warned not to ask directly for a concerto,
and was, therefore, all the more pleased when Shostakovich wrote a concerto
for him. The score was handed to him in Leningrad on 2nd August 1959 and four
days later he had memorised it, playing it through to the composer in his dacha
at Komarovo. It was given its first performance in Leningrad by Rostropovich,
with the orchestra under the direction of Yevgeny Mravinsky.
The concerto owes much to Prokofiev’s
Symphony-Concertante, a work that Shostakovich greatly admired. The opening
four-note motif, which is of great importance, is announced by the cello, accompanied
by the woodwind, and this material is developed. Other thematic material is
introduced, marked by an insistent falling third. A clarinet assumes prominence,
followed by the restatement of the opening theme by the French horn, which repeats
the theme, allowing the soloist a section of rapid passage-work, later shared
by the upper woodwind. The French horn restates the theme once more, followed
by the soloist, with a passage for solo cello and French horn based on the same
material. The impetus that has compelled the movement forward is briefly relaxed,
as the theme winds downwards, before the brusque conclusion. The second movement
opens with a heartfelt A minor string melody, followed by the evocative notes
of the French horn, before the cello enters, with its elegiac melody, accompanied
by lower strings, the violas providing a moving counterpoint. The melancholy
theme is taken up by the clarinet, accompanied by the solo cello, which then
resumes prominence. There is a change of key to F sharp minor, as the strings
repeat their opening material, to which the solo cello adds a melody of great
intensity, leading to a passage in which the soloist is accompanied by the gentle
syncopation of flute, clarinets and bassoons. The material is developed, before
the original string melody returns, followed, as at the beginning, by the solo
French horn. Now the soloist plays again the melancholy tune of the first solo
entry, in harmonics, with a moving first violin accompaniment and the colouring
of the celesta. A sustained note from the cello leads directly to the cadenza,
a movement in itself, based on earlier thematic material, with the motif that
opened the concerto gradually assuming prominence. The soloist leads the way
into the final Allegro con moto, its busy angular theme heard first from
oboe and clarinet, then joined by flute and piccolo. There is a quotation from
Stalin’s favourite song, Suliko, used before by Shostakovich in his private
satire on the idiocies of Soviet officialdom, Rayok, before the timpani
calls a halt, allowing the entry of the solo cello. New thematic material, in
a changed rhythm, is introduced by the strings, followed by the cello, with
echoes of the first movement, the first motif assuming more and more importance,
as the concerto is impelled onwards to its conclusion, once again reinforced
by the timpani.
Shostakovich wrote his Cello
Concerto No. 2, Opus 126, in late April and early May 1966, while staying
in the Crimea. The work was dedicated again to Rostropovich, who gave the first
performance at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, with the orchestra under
the direction of Yevgeny Svetlanov, on 25th September of the same year, at a
concert to celebrate the composer’s sixtieth birthday. Mravinsky had refused
to conduct the work in Leningrad, since awkwardness had sprung up between him
and the composer, after his refusal to conduct the controversial Thirteenth
Symphony, with its poems by Yevtushenko.
The soloist opens the first movement
with a sombre melody, to which lower strings provide an accompaniment. From
this the musical line develops, allowing the cello a mood of melancholy meditation,
before the introduction of new material in contrast, livelier in character,
assisted by the xylophone. A dramatic climax is reached, with the bass drum
interrupting the solo cello in its brief cadenza. The opening theme returns,
leading the way to a conclusion in hushed sadness. The soloist introduces the
following Allegretto, with a rhythmic theme of characteristic contour,
based on an Odessa street-song, Bubliki, kupitye, bubliki. The last movement
starts with answering fanfares, echoed by the cello in an unaccompanied passage.
This first episode ends with a relatively conventional cadence, introducing
a passage of lyricism, gently lilting, without losing anything of its underlying
sombre mood. Fanfares introduce an ominous march, quickly abandoned, and the
movement continues its capricious course, with the same cadence used to restore,
however briefly, a more lyrical mood. The orchestra embarks on a wild dance,
joined by the cello with the fanfare motif. The tender lyrical section returns
and there are reminiscences of the first movement. The concerto ends with a
final sustained note from the soloist, accompanied by percussion.
Maria Kliegel
Maria Kliegel achieved significant
success in 1981, when she was awarded the Grand Prix in the Rostropovich Competition.
Born in Dillenburg, Germany, she began learning the cello at the age of ten
and first came to public attention five years later, when, as a student at the
Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, she twice won first prize in the Jugend Musiziert
competition. She later studied in America with János Starker, serving as his
assistant, and subsequently appeared in a phenomenal series of concerts in America,
Switzerland and France, with Rostropovich as conductor. She has since then enjoyed
an international career of growing distinction as a soloist and recitalist,
offering an amazingly wide repertoire, ranging from Bach and Vieuxtemps to the
contemporary.
The Polish National Radio Symphony
Orchestra of Katowice (PNRSO)
The Polish National Radio Symphony
Orchestra of Katowice (PNRSO) was founded in 1935 in Warsaw through the initiative
of well-known Polish conductor and composer Grzegorz Fitelberg. Under his direction
the ensemble worked till the outbreak of the World War II. Soon after the war,
in March 1945, the orchestra was resurrected in Katowice by the eminent Polish
conductor Witold Rowicki. In 1947 Grzegorz Fitelberg returned to Poland and
became artistic director of the PNRSO. He was followed by a series of distinguished
Polish conductors - Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiezko, Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugala,
Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanislaw Wislocki and, since 1983, Antoni Wit. The orchestra
has appeared with conductors and soloists of the greatest distinction and has
recorded for Polskie Nagrania and many international record labels. For Naxos,
the PNRSO has recorded the complete symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Mahler and
orchestral music by Lutosławski.
Antoni Wit
Antoni Wit was born in Krakow in
1944 and studied there, before becoming assistant to Witold Rowicki with the
National Philharmonic Orchestra in Warsaw in 1967. He studied with Nadia Boulanger
in Paris and with Penderecki and in 1971 was a prize-winner in the Herbert von
Karajan Competition. Study at Tanglewood with Skrowaczewski and Seiji Ozawa
was followed by appointment as Principal Conductor first of the Pomeranian Philharmonic
and then of the Krakow Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1983 he took up the position
of Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony
Orchestra in Katowice. Antoni Wit has undertaken many engagements abroad with
major orchestras, ranging from the Berlin Philharmonic and the BBC Welsh and
Scottish Symphony Orchestras to the Kusatsu Festival Orchestra in Japan.