BRITTEN & SHOSTAKOVICH

You can download the program of the concert here.

The Russian cellist Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (1927–2007) is the linking thread running through this Britten & Shostakovich recital. Few could come close to Rostropovich in terms of technique and performance; and he was an indefatigable promoter of new music, bombarding composers with commissions of new works and asking them to include novel instrumental techniques. He was a technical innovator with the cello; for instance, he designed an endpin that allowed it to be played more horizontally, and in bowing he made better use of gravity to achieve a more expressive tone.

Thanks to Rostropovich, who himself premièred more than a hundred works, the cello repertoire grew as never before and continues to do so today. Part of this abundance is a new work included in the recital. But we have to return to 1934 (Rostropovich was only seven) when Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich, the 27-year-old wunderkind of Soviet music, was experiencing a particularly turbulent year. His fame at home and abroad, so far unclouded by the later attacks on him by the Soviet hierarchy, intensified in January with the feverishly anticipated première of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, for which both Moscow and Leningrad theatres had wrestled. Its success with Soviet audiences was enormous. The work was dedicated to his wife Nina, though he had recently left her for a young Leningrad student. Later in the year he wrote the Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 for his friend Viktor Lvovich Kubatsky (1891–1970) and returned to his wife; in May 1936 his first child, Galina, was born.

Rostropovich was interested in Shostakovich’s works from an early age, but shyness and respect prevented the two artists from becoming closer until 1959, when Shostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto in E-flat major. The virtuoso cellist allegedly learned the work in only three days and when the two met at Shostakovich’s home to play it for the first time he rejected the music stand, playing from memory. When the concerto was first performed in Britain in September 1960 at London’s Royal Festival Hall, the composer sat in a box with Benjamin Britten, whose music was also part of that evening’s programme. A surprising, yet profound friendship blossomed between the two composers, despite the influence of the Iron Curtain. Shostakovich particularly admired Britten’s War Requiem, while Britten was enchanted with Shostakovich’s new concerto, which led him to an interest in the cello.

Rostropovich, of course, was not left behind and the next year Britten wrote the Cello Sonata, Op. 65 for him. Although the two sonatas – Shostakovich’s and Britten’s – are separated by nearly 27 years, in terms of expression they are close. In the final movement Britten paid tribute to his new friend by using his musical signature (also known as the DSCH motif), the notes D-E German notation, D-Es-C-H, derived from the German abbreviation of his name, D. Sch.

Jan Špaček
translated by Štěpán Kaňa