Rachmaninov / Shostakovich: Sonatas for cello and piano

Sergey Rakhmaninov (1873-1943) Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Sonatas for Cello and Piano Robert Irvine cello Graeme McNaught piano

Rakhmaninov: Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 1 Lento – Allegro moderato

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2 Allegro scherzando

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3 Andante

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4 Allegro mosso

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5 Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14

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Shostakovich: Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 6 Allegro non troppo

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7 Allegro

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8 Largo

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9 Allegro

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Total playing time

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Recorded on 7-9 September 2007 at CREAR, Lochgilphead, Argyll Producer: Paul Baxter Engineer: Beth Mackay 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks

24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Photograph editing: Raymond Parks Photography © Delphian Records Design: Drew Padrutt Booklet editor: John Fallas

With thanks to Mr Iain Harrison for financial support

Cover image: Stephanie Irvine Page turner: Emily Walker Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk

Notes on the music This recording presents two major works of the twentieth-century chamber repertory.

Sergey Rakhmaninov’s Sonata Op. 19 for piano and cello (sic) was written in the summer of 1901 and premiered on 2 December in Moscow by the composer and its dedicatee, Anatoly Brandukov. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata Op. 40 for cello and piano was begun on 14 August 1934 in Moscow, completed on 19 September that same year in Leningrad, and first performed on 25 December in the Small Hall of the Leningrad Conservatoire by the composer and its dedicatee, Viktor Kubatsky. Between these events came the Great War, the Great Depression, the foundation of the Soviet Union and the rise of Hitler and Stalin. Even so, these pieces remain impervious to extramusical interpretation. Both composers have been favourite subjects for inveterate readers of biography in music, and yet what we have here are two fine examples of absolute chamber music.

personal crisis, and Shostakovich’s marriage to his first wife, Nina, was under strain at the time of his sonata’s composition. Yet there remains the paradox that, while much has been written and spoken about these composers, they themselves declined to comment on the essential how and why of their music. A word or two might have made all the difference. As it is, and in the case of these cello sonatas especially, the scores remain the crucial evidence, heard in the light of the history of the genre.

Regarding the latter, the range of canonical models for composers writing in the form was and remains narrow yet concentrated, in spite of a roster of works by Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Grieg, Reger and others. Cello and piano was the last of the major duo combinations to find equality among the textures replacing those derived from the continuo style. To this day, its classics amount to only eight in total: Beethoven’s five sonatas for piano and cello, two sonatas This will be no surprise for the sonatas’

by Brahms, and Chopin’s G minor sonata of devoted admirers, not least those cellists 1847. A pianist par excellence, Rakhmaninov and pianists who, like the present would have known this last work intimately, performers, have studied these pieces, and admired its extension of the genre’s responded to their qualities, and committed range to encompass romantic pianism. All them to recordings. Their technical challenge the same, his own G minor sonata is far from is at one with their expressive stance, which derivative, its keyboard part being full of in common with that of other great music the colours and textures we associate with transcends its origins. True, Rakhmaninov the composer in this period of his greatest wrote his score after recovering from musical statements.

For Shostakovich, the more relevant example signalled the return of his abundant creativity, was surely Beethoven, the genre’s inventor. For then the sonata, with its masterly handling of his sixty-ninth birthday concert – which turned classical forms, confirmed his new powers. out to be a memorial recital – he had requested Henceforth, at least until the outbreak of war that all his string sonatas be programmed, and his years of exile, there would be no more including his last composition, the Viola Sonata, self-doubt, but an outpouring that included the Op. 147, with its adagio conclusion paying Second Symphony, Third Piano Concerto, The homage to the German master. Forty-one years Isle of the Dead and the operas Francesca da earlier, in textures nearly as sparse as those of Rimini and The Miserly Knight. the later work, the Cello Sonata had essayed a form that Beethoven had pioneered. Of course, Beside these major works, the sonata seems such economy was also a noted feature of comparatively slight. Yet it contains nothing either the Shostakovich style, no less so than the uncharacteristic of the composer or unworthy to sweeping piano accompaniments – through stand beside his other works. Indeed, the trace which the cello miraculously sings – are of of his inimitable style may be found in every bar, Rakhmaninov’s. But the interesting point about confirming beyond forensic doubt the musical both these works is how, for all their differences, tissue as his. Any debt to Chopin is redeemed they present the essence of their composers’ in a keyboard part that translates its romantic manners in its purest substance, unalloyed with piano style in terms of the Russian composer’s non-musical content, and sharpened by the remarkable technique, while the cello’s role challenge of solving the problems of blend and reflects the instrument’s increasing powers, balance endemic to the medium. achieved in the preceding half-century, of tonal production in its highest registers.

The Rakhmaninov sonata is a fiery piece, serious in mood yet progressing from a In the matter of its unrivalled power to brooding first movement of impressive deliver song-like instrumental themes, and proportions to a rapturous finale. It was written Rakhmaninov’s genius for inventing them, there in 1901, between the completion of his Second was of course no conflict. Indeed, one might Piano Concerto and his controversial marriage, hear the work purely in terms of his attitude early the following year, to his first cousin. The to his melodies, in a pattern of increasing composer had previously been suffering from relaxation. The first movement treats its creative block and depression, for which he material in a stern and disciplined way, with a had been treated by the hypnotist Dr Nikolay powerfully argued development that bypasses Dahl. If the rapturously received new concerto the main theme on arriving at the recapitulation,

but balances the omission with an extensive coda. Though still severe in mood, the scherzo in its middle section blossoms into elaborate song-like phrases. Intoxicating melodic blooms of languorous Slavic odour are the subject of the third movement. By contrast, in the finale the composer is so much in love with his musical flowers, arranged in spaciously symmetrical periods, that rhythm and texture seem secondary elements, almost to the point of artistic imbalance. It is here that sensitive performers will find most to challenge their inner sense of musical logic, and to draw out the piece to its triumphant conclusion.

Much in the world had changed when Shostakovich came to write his D minor Sonata, Op. 40, in August 1934. For one thing, Rakhmaninov’s music had been banned for two years in his homeland, after imprudent remarks about its new regime had been reported in the New York Times. For the younger composer, in the throes of marital discord while also enjoying the recent triumph of his opera Lady Macbeth, the role of leading Soviet artist had yet to acquire the opprobrium for which it became notorious. Instead, with ballets, film scores and a fourth symphony in prospect, he was quoted in Pravda, three days after the Cello Sonata’s premiere, as aspiring to ‘a monumental, programmatic piece of great ideas and great passions’, while he also spoke around this time of searching for a simple, expressive language, though one

without those cardinal Soviet sins of formalism and epigonism.

If actions speak louder than words, however, then his turning to a work of classical dimensions to record, as if in a diary entry, his current thoughts on musical rhetoric invites us to hear the reality of his intentions. Moreover, it was a reality he had already visited a year earlier in the cool neo-classicism of his 24 Preludes, and would visit again in the Piano Quintet of 1940 and, later still, the 24 Preludes and Fugues of 1950-51.

In the cello sonata, the spirit throughout is one of dialogue, conducted in terms of purely musical expression. This includes a conversation of styles, a mode which contemporary scores by Stravinsky and Hindemith may have encouraged, but which was no less inspired by the composer’s own aesthetic and versatility. For Shostakovich, moreover, it was the nineteenth-century past, not that of Bach and Handel, which formed the second term of the discussion. And, as one might expect from this composer, even in the realm of chamber music, and in a work that is relatively small in scale, the formal ideal is unequivocally symphonic.

As if to reinforce the impression of classical discipline, Shostakovich gives the option (which is observed in this recording) of repeating the sonata-form exposition. And

like Rakhmaninov before him, he uses the traditional structure not as a gesture but as a pattern of expectation that is renewed by the shaping force of contradiction. Having captured our attention with two powerfully contrasted themes, expressive and mobile, expressive and lingering, he underpins the development with a characteristically anapaestic rhythmic figure that transports the music towards a recapitulation conducted in reverse order, with the main theme revisited at half-tempo.

Folk-dance then dirge are the moods evoked by the second and third movements, both composed in three-part designs of clearly classical provenance. The latter movement in particular, with its dark introduction for muted cello, and a middle section marked at one point fff before the music collapses into a stygian F minor with the cellist instructed to play only on the lowest string, anticipates similarly impassioned outbursts in later works such as the First Violin Concerto.

command of large-scale composition from his earliest works to such final, enigmatic scores as the Fifteenth Symphony.

In Rakhmaninov’s Vocalise we recognise a distinctively late-Romantic melody, and a tune which, in its pattern of brief phrases returning inconsolably to a repeated pitch, bears an unmistakable fingerprint of the composer’s style.

A durable melodic and harmonic identity, it has been transcribed in several instrumental versions, including this one for cello and piano, but began life as the last of the composer’s 14 Songs Op. 34, written in 1912 between the major piano scores of the first set of Etudes-tableaux and the Second Piano Sonata. For the previous 13 songs of the set, Rakhmaninov had chosen texts by Russian Romantic poets from Pushkin to Balmont, and dedicated them to singers for whose artistry the individual songs were tailored. These included the bass Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin (1873-1938), the lyric tenor Leonid Sobinov (1872-1934) and the Wagnerian soprano Felia Litvin (1860-1936). The dedication of the fourteenth, the Vocalise, was to the soprano Antonina Nezhdanova (1873-1950), a distinguished Soviet singer and teacher, who was a Bolshoi soloist for nearly 40 years.

The finale, a loose-knit rondo, is as dependent on time-honoured models as the opening Allegro non troppo. Very much of the present, however, is its irony, rooted in the composer’s invention of themes that project In this case, however, the music is wordless; with theatrical precision an affect or attitude. and it is perhaps the novelty of the idea that Allied to this skill is a ubiquitous power of explains the complicated dating of this song. varied phrasing. A vital fact in explaining the Though belonging to the Op. 34 set, it was sonata’s refined sense of movement, it is a omitted from the original collection published in no less essential condition of this composer’s 1913, being issued separately three years later,

and appearing in situ only in the ‘complete’ two volume collection of 71 songs issued by Gutheil/ Koussevitzky in 1921-2. The classic biography of the composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music by Sergei Bertensson and Jay Leyda (New York, 1956), gives the date of composition as April 1912, revised 21 September 1915, and the first performance as 24 January 1916 by Nezhdanova and the composer at a Koussevitzky concert in Moscow; yet it fails to report on why the composer adopted this novel medium.

As with so many other questions about this most reticent of artists, it is likely that an explanation here will never be forthcoming. But the idea of the vocalise, or true ‘song without words’, was by no means alien to the period, and the introduction of the wordless voice into the ensemble as a logical extension of ‘absolute’ music had found favour with other leading figures. Debussy employed wordless voices for their expressive colour in Sirènes (1899), last of the three Nocturnes for orchestra.

Note on spellings The Western representation of Russian composers’ names is no simple matter, but tells a fascinating story of different orthographic choices down the years and across the world. Shostakovich, a name spelt differently in almost every European country, has nonetheless remained remarkably constant for writers in English. But the ‘ch’ in the most commonly seen English transliteration of ‘Rachmaninov’ is clearly not the same sound as that found at the end of ‘Shostakovich’. Nor, in Russian spelling, is it the same letter.

Later, in major works, both Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams followed his example.

In chamber music, Ludwig Spohr’s Sonatina for voice and piano had set an example as far back as 1848, while notable examples from the twentieth century included Ravel’s Vocalise en forme d’habanera of 1907, Stravinsky’s charming Pastorale of the same year, and, from the 1920s, the Sonate-Vocalise and Suite-Vocalise Op. 41 by Metner.

In the long view, such experiments were a cul-desac. The voice is not more but less musically pure when divorced from language. Even so, bonding Russian soul with Bach-like textural cohesion, it may be said that ends truly justify means in this soaring wordless aria, whose appeal is timeless. © 2008 Nicholas Williams A publisher and writer on music, Nicholas Williams was a critic for The Independent for a decade.

He is Associate Editor of The Musical Times.

There is a strong pragmatic argument for adopting the spelling that record buyers are most used to seeing on the shelves of a record shop, and we have chosen that option for the cover and traycard of this CD. For the essay we have followed the more scholarly practice of choosing a consistent Latin letter or combination of letters to represent each character of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Hence ‘Rakhmaninov’; hence also ‘Shalyapin’ (rather than ‘Chaliapin’) and ‘Metner’ (as against the more familiar German spelling ‘Medtner’).

Robert Irvine Robert Irvine was born in Glasgow, and at the age of 16 was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where he studied with Christopher Bunting and Amaryllis Fleming.

Whilst there he won most of the major prizes in chamber music and solo playing.

On leaving the Royal College, he went on to further studies with William Pleeth and Pierre Fournier before joining the Philharmonia Orchestra as sub-principal cello. He also worked extensively at Aldeburgh, forming the Brindisi String Quartet and working closely with Sir Peter Pears as continuo cellist and as principal cellist of the Britten Pears Orchestra.

At this time he toured much of Europe with the Brindisi Quartet, making numerous festival appearances and broadcasts. He left the Philharmonia in 1988 to take up the position of principal cello with the Academy of St Martinin-the-Fields, touring extensively.

In 1990, Robert returned to Scotland to take up the post of principal cellist with Scottish Opera, and with Sally Beamish and James MacMillan founded the Chamber Group of Scotland, performing and broadcasting a wide range of both chamber and solo music. He has recorded several CDs including the complete cello works of Sally Beamish for the Swedish label BIS, solo works by Dallapiccola, and the cello music of Giles Swayne for Delphian (DCD34073).

He is a senior professor of cello and chamber music at the RSAMD in Glasgow.

Robert plays on a fine Venetian cello by Gofriller from 1720, kindly loaned to him by Renagour Rare Instruments.

Graeme McNaught Graeme McNaught studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, then with Alfons Kontarsky, Hans Leygraf and Maria Curcio in Munich, Salzburg and London respectively. As the unanimous winner of the first Scottish Piano Competition he soon established himself, through a busy schedule of recitals, broadcasts and concerto engagements, as one of the country’s leading musicians.

His involvement with the highly acclaimed Chamber Group of Scotland, reflecting a commitment to the works of living composers, gave rise to numerous commissions, first performances and appearances in the festivals of Edinburgh, Huddersfield and Bergen amongst others.

He has performed throughout Britain, Central Europe and in the Far East as a soloist and in ensemble with a wide range of artists including Ruggiero Ricci, Lynn Harrell and Willard White.

His recordings include Ricci’s 75th-birthday recital, a disc of Copland with Willard White and James MacMillan’s Cumnock Fair with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Chamber music on Delphian Giles Swayne: Music for cello and piano Robert Irvine cello, Fali Pavri piano (DCD34073) Giles Swayne’s works for cello exhibit an astonishing array of moods and colours. The restless beauty of Four Lyrical Pieces and strident romanticism of the Sonata offer remarkable counterpoint to his Suite for solo cello. Canto seduces the listener with its symbiotic blend of African traditional and Western art music.

‘Superbly played … recorded with trademark spaciousness and clarity …

Minimalist in some ways, quite complex in others, [Canto] projects that positive tone and enquiring spirit which represent this composer at his considerable best’ – Gramophone, March 2008

Luigi Dallapiccola: a portrait David Wilde piano, Susan Hamilton soprano Nicola Stonehouse mezzo-soprano, Robert Irvine cello (DCD34020) Luigi Dallapiccola is one of the most celebrated Italian composers of the twentieth century. This disc features chamber music and songs alongside his complete works for solo piano. Whether drawing on the music of the past to nourish the contrapuntal organisation of his own, or concentrating on the opportunities for gentle lyricism afforded by bell-like vocal and instrumental sonorities, Dallapiccola’s commitment to traditional expressive nuance has been seen by critics as a powerful aspect of his Italian insistence upon cantabilità – songfulness. ‘a marriage of discipline and imagination of which Wilde is fully aware …

[Nicola Stonehouse] is eloquence itself in the Goethe-Lieder’ – Gramophone, April 2007

Liszt: Sonata in B minor / Busoni: Elegies David Wilde piano (DCD34030) Bryce Morrison writes: ‘I first heard David play the Busoni Elegies at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. I also heard his earlier recording of the Liszt Sonata. These performances, as cogent as they were lucid and powerful, have long stayed in my memory, yet they are far excelled by Delphian’s present offering. Here, surely, is blazing confirmation of what Sir Michael Tippett once called “the immense effort of interpretation”, by means of a rare communicative vividness and force. In a time of increasing musical homogeneity David Wilde’s Liszt and Busoni stand out for their very special drama and integrity.’

‘Wilde lives up to his name in Liszt’s B minor Sonata ... a performance heaving with free-flowing passion, power and zeal’ – The Scotsman, August 2007 Robert Crawford: Piano Quintet, music for solo piano Nicholas Ashton piano, Edinburgh Quartet (DCD34055) Elder statesman of the Scottish music scene, Robert Crawford has throughout his life lavished intense care upon every one of his comparatively few compositions. The Edinburgh Quartet and pianist Nicholas Ashton are intimately acquainted with Crawford’s work, and mirror the composer’s attention to detail in a long overdue survey of this lovingly crafted music, spanning 60 years of compositional activity. ‘an impressive collection … committed and excellent performances’ – Musical Opinion, March/April 2008 ‘splendid, incisive playing’ – The Wire, April 2008

DCD34034