Shostakovich: Cello Sonata / Violin Sonata

Yablonsky:Fedotov:Petrova

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Cat No: 8557722

Release Date: 09 January 2006

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313272228

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: SHOSTAKOVICH

Description
Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975) Violin Sonata • Cello Sonata If one surveys the output of Dmitry Shostakovich as a whole, his chamber music is dominated by the fifteen string quartets [Naxos 8.550973 through 8.550977] that pervade the latter part of his career. Apart from these, he also left his mark on the piano trio [Naxos 8.553297], the piano quintet [8.554830] and the accompanied sonata - those for cello, violin and viola counting among his most significant instrumental creations.Much the earliest of these is the Cello Sonata, the appearance of which must have seemed anomalous in an output that, for much of the preceding decade, had been devoted to music for the stage. In 1933, however, Shostakovich produced his First Piano Concerto [8.553126] and his Twenty-Four Preludes for piano [8.555781], both pieces evincing a desire to work within classical formal constraints. Written in August and September the following year for Viktor Kubatsky, who gave the première with the composer in Leningrad on 25 December 1934, the Cello Sonata furthers this thinking – each of its four movements following Classical models in spirit, if not always to the letter.The Moderato begins with a pensive if restless melody from cello over a closely-related piano accompaniment. This builds to a brief climax, after which the second theme is heard, a more tranquil idea that gives full reign to the cello's expressive qualities. After a repeated-note codetta, the exposition is repeated literally; then the development section commences with an impulsive discussion of the first theme (the cello initially playing in pizzicato), ominously underpinned by the repeated-note idea in the piano. The second theme restores a measure of calm, but instead of the expected reprise, the piano now begins a walking-bass motion over which the cello unfolds a halting version of the first theme to serve as an uncertain and not entirely conclusive coda.The Allegro is among the earliest of Shostakovich's bracingly sardonic scherzos, though without the element of bitterness often to the fore in his later works. The piano introduces the rhythmically forceful, folk-inflected main theme over a churning cello accompaniment, with both instruments then sharing in its continuation. The trio is an arresting invention that makes prominent use of cello glissandi, before a largely straightforward reprise of the scherzo music and a brusque coda. The Largois a 'romance' that draws on a lineage taking in Tchaikovsky and even Rachmaninov. The yearning initial cello phrase gradually opens out into a restrained but expressive melody; one that builds in an unbroken arc of intensity to a central climax where the theme is powerfully restated. This dies down to an affecting passage where the theme migrates to the piano while the cello maintains a ruminative counterpoint, before both instruments combine in a poignant coda.The Allegro that follows is, for Shostakovich,
Tracklisting