Classical Music | Cello Music

Recorded on 07/03/2008, uploaded on 12/01/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Allegro non troppo -- Allegro -- Largo -- Allegro

With the success of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Shostakovich suddenly found himself ranked among the foremost of Soviet composers. Its premiere in 1934 was an instant success and praised by audiences and officials alike. However, the opera would soon become a source of problems, both personally and professionally, for the composer. Reveling in its success, Shostakovich became infatuated with a young student he had met at a festival in Leningrad featuring Lady Macbeth. The affair led to an upheaval of his personal life and a divorce from his wife, Nina, in 1935. During their separation, Shostakovich composed his solo sonata for the cello. The sonata was premiered on December 25 in Moscow with the composer himself at the piano and Viktor Kubatsky, also the work’s dedicatee, as soloist. Purportedly, Shostakovich first read of Stalin’s attack against his music on the way to the premiere. The Cello Sonata would ultimately evade any official denunciation, but other works, such as Lady Macbeth, faced the wrath of Stalin’s propaganda machine and others still were later withdrawn.

Cast in four movements, the Cello Sonata has much in common with Shostakovich’s symphonic works and is full of his typical sarcasm and wit. The Allegro non troppo opening movement, at first a quite conventional sonata form with two regular lyrical themes, suddenly abandons all formal considerations with its unusual recapitulation and mysterious close. The following Scherzo movement, marked Allegro, rather snubs its nose at those that would make demands of the composer’s music and attempt to control his artistic will. In contrast, the Largo third movement presents a rhapsodic, lyrical theme, and is a foreshadowing of the tone that would dominate many of the composer’s later works. Lastly, the Finale adopts a playful and energetic mood, but ends quite abruptly defying any expectations of a showcase ending.      Joseph DuBose

The Steans Music Institute is the Ravinia Festival's professional studies program for young musicians.