SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No1 ENCORE Steven Isserlis

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Excluding a number of arrangements he made for cello and piano of extracts from his ballet and film scores, and orchestrations of cello concertos by Tischenko and Schumann, Shostakovich’s sum total of works for solo cello amounted to four short early works (three of which have been lost) a Sonata and two concertos. Both the concertos were written for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich; “The First Cello Concerto was the first work that Shostakovich wrote specially for me”, Rostropovich revealed in an interview: “Interestingly enough, I never asked him to write anything. Once, when talking to Shostakovich’s wife I raised the question of a commission. She answered, ‘If you want Dmitri to write something for you the only recipe I can give is this – never ask him or talk to him about it.’ So, with the greatest difficulty, I managed to restrain myself. But although I never spoke about it, Dmitri knew that I constantly dreamt of his writing a piece for me.” Shostakovich wrote his Cello Concerto No.1 in July 1959 and passed the score to Rostropovich in early August. “I practised for 10 hours the first day, and had the score memorised within three days. It was the most wonderful pleasure for me”. Rostropovich premièred the Concerto in Leningrad on 4th October 1959 in a performance conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky. • In the mid-1950s the Soviet government under Nikita Khrushchev relaxed some of the hitherto stringent guidelines it had imposed on Soviet artists, and it was during this period that Rostropovich, then a professor at the Moscow Conservatoire, was first able to travel outside the Soviet Union and establish his international career. Shostakovich, too, always conscious of the delicate balancing act he had to perform in satisfying both official demands and artistic integrity, found this a more relaxing time (indeed in 1960 he even went so far as to join the Communist Party and become something of a figurehead in Khrushchev’s campaign to convince the West of his liberal credentials). It was at this time that he composed some of his most open and relaxed music, although always careful not to offend the limitations on composers laid down by the authorities; as one commentator has put it the First Cello Concerto “attests to the fact that, when informed by genius, the most Procrustean of limitations can be the mother of invention.” • The cello opens the 1st movement with a vigorous melody derived from Shostakovich’s “musical signature” (the notes D-E flat-C-B, which in German notation spell the letters D-S-C-H) and proceeds with much nervous energy and rhythmic momentum to its almost farcical ending – a whooping horn and a single drum beat (inspired, it appears, by the disabled timpanist of the Moscow Philharmonic of whom Shostakovich had commented; “How that one-legged guy thumped his drum! He called an end to everything with that final blow!”). • The 2nd movement is wholly different; full of heart-wrenching pathos and displaying the cello in its most soulful and melancholy guise. The movement ends with a desolate duet between cello in its highest register and celesta playing a melody derived from an old Russian folk tune. Leading without a break from this extended outpouring of sadness, the cello dolefully embarks on the 3rd movement which takes the form of a seven-minute solo cadenza looking back over some of the material heard in the previous movements, and turning the mood towards the somewhat mischievous 4th movement. Apparently Stalin’s favourite song was “Suliko”, which Shostakovich incorporates (heavily disguised) into this movement, while towards the end a solo horn belts out the “signature” theme with which the Concerto began. (Marc Rochester) • DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH • Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107 • I. Allegretto 00:00 • II. Moderato 07:08 • III. Cadenza 17:41 • IV. Allegro con moto 23:08 • Encore: PROKOFIEV March from Music for Children, Op.65 (arr. Piatigorsky) 31:10 • Steven Isserlis, cello • Singapore Symphony Orchestra • Lan Shui, conductor • Recorded live at the Esplanade Concert Hall, 30 April 2015. • Photo: Satoshi Aoyagi

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