Cello Recital: Tatjana Vassilieva

Description

Tatjana Vassilieva: Cello RecitalIgor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Suite italienne (version for cello and piano, 1932) Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 65 (1960-61) Henri Dutilleux (b. 1916): 3 Strophes sur le nom de Paul Sacher (1976, 1982) Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Cello Sonata (1915)The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky owed much of his early success to the impresario Sergey Diaghilev. It was Diaghilev who commissioned The Firebird for his Ballets russes, to be followed by Petrushka and, in 1913, the succ?¿s de scandale of The Rite of Spring, Nijinsky's debut as a choreographer. Collaboration with Diaghilev was limited during the war, when Stravinsky lived in Switzerland, but resumed after the Armistice with the ballet Pulcinella, based on music then attributed to Pergolesi and first staged at the Paris Opera in 1920. Immersion in music so characteristic of the eighteenth century had a decisive influence on Stravinsky, marking a period in his writing described as neo-classical, or, by some, neo-tonal, a style that culminated in 1950 in the opera The Rake's Progress.Pulcinella was based on a Neapolitan comedy, with commedia dell'arte characters, while Stravinsky's score, for singers and orchestra, largely preserved the original melodies and bass-lines, but harmonized and orchestrated in a style entirely his own. From the score various suites were drawn, one for violin and piano with the violinist Samuel Dushkin, and the present suite for cello and piano, arranged with the assistance of the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, who had left the Soviet Union in 1921. The two arrangements were made in 1932. The brightly coloured 'Introduzione', the overture to the ballet, is taken from a Trio Sonata by Domenico Gallo, its 1780 attribution to Pergolesi already a matter of doubt among contemporaries. The pastoral 'Serenata' is taken from Pergolesi's opera Flaminio, written in 1735, a year before the composer's early death, and the 'Aria' is taken from the same work. The rapid Neapolitan 'Tarantella' comes from the fourth movement of a Concertino that has been variously attributed. It is now widely thought to be the work not, as once supposed, of Fortunato Chelleri or of Riccardo Ricciotti, nor, indeed, of Pergolesi, but of the Dutch nobleman Count Van Wassenaer. The Minuetto e Finale are taken from Pergolesi's opera Lo frate 'nnamorato and a Gallo Trio Sonata respectively.If Stravinsky's Suite reflects a debt to Piatigorsky, Benjamin Britten's Cello Sonata and Henri Dutilleux's Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher, owe their origins to Mstislav Rostropovich, whose friendship with Britten gave rise to the three Cello Suites and the remarkable Cello Symphony. Britten had met Rostropovich at the first London performance of the cello concerto written for the latter by Shostakovich. Their friendship marked a partial return by Britten to instrumental composit