Shostakovich/Schnittke: Cello Sonatas
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH / ALFRED SCHNITTKE
Shostakovich/Schnittke: Cello Sonatas
Alban Gerhardt (cello) / Steven Osborne (piano)
[ Hyperion / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 14 July 2006
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Shostakovich's Cello Sonata Op 40 received its premiere in December 1934, in a period of great personal turmoil. Its return to a much more conservative style did not fade his image - due to the impact of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk - as the Soviet Union's enfant terrible which had created a difficult situation against a furious Stalin and the régime. The impact of censorship on Shostakovich's musical progress resulted in works with deeply personal and powerful statements which can be heard on this disc.
His Eleven pieces for cello and piano - eight of which are recorded here - are a collection of arrangements of Shostakovich's ballet and film compositions, the best known being the Nocturne from the film The Gadfly.
Also on this disc is Alfred Schnittke's First Cello Sonata, in which he takes the basic major/minor third and the perfect cadence and subjects them to extreme magnification resulting in an exploration of harmony, atmosphere, drama and anguished searching.
'Beautifully recorded and played, this is a disc that enchants simply through the sound it makes. Both Gerhardt and Osborne are noted especially for their poetic insights and whenever the music turns introspective here they cast a magic spell so as to have one hanging on to their every note'
(Classic FM Magazine)
"In Alban Gerhardt and Steven Osborne, Shostakovich, and subsequently Schnittke, find passionate and searching interpreters."
(ClassicalSource.com Aug 2006)
'The peformers give vivid and briliant delineations in this well-balanced recording'
(The Strad)
"In many respects Alfred Schnittke seems to take Shostakovich's unique brand of introverted lyricism and his penchant for grotesque imagery to new levels of intensity. This link is palpably drawn by Alban Gerhardt and Steven Osborne whose approach to the much-recorded Shostakovich is admirably fresh and innovative. Particularly daring is their emotionally numb and extremely slow reading of the Largo coda to the first movement... In this context, the slow outer movements of the Schnittke seem particularly withdrawn and disturbing, the frenzied activity of the central Presto offering little respite to an all-pervasive feeling of gloom and despair." BBC Music
Tracks:
SCHNITTKE
Sonata No 1 for cello and piano
Madrigal In Memoriam Oleg Kagan
6 Klingende Buchstaben
SHOSTAKOVICH
Sonata in D minor for cello and piano Op 40
Eight pieces for cello and piano
