Shostakovich Cello Concerto 1 Score
Noreen
The Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, was composed in 1959 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days. He premiered it on October 4, 1959, at the Large Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. The first recording was made in two days following the premiere by Rostropovich and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Aleksandr Gauk.[1]
The first concerto is widely considered to be one of the most difficult concert works for cello, along with the Sinfonia Concertante of Sergei Prokofiev, with which it shares certain features (such as the prominent role of isolated timpani strokes). Shostakovich said that "an impulse" for the piece was provided by his admiration for that earlier work.[2][not specific enough to verify]
The first movement begins with a four-note main motive some believe is derived from the composer's musical cryptogram D-S-C-H for his name DSCH. The concerto motive is only remotely related, specifically by both being four-note motives having a half-step between the third and fourth notes. The intervals, rhythm and shape of the motto are continually distorted and re-shaped throughout the movement. It is also related to a theme from the composer's score for the 1948 film The Young Guard, which illustrates a group of Soviet soldiers being marched to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis. The theme reappears in Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 (1960).
The second, third and fourth movements are played continuously. The second movement is initially elegiac in tone. The string section begins with a quiet theme that is never played by the solo cello. The horn answers and the solo cello begins a new theme. The orchestra plays it after and the first theme is played again. The cello plays its second theme, which progressively becomes more agitated, building to a climax in bar 148. This is immediately followed by the first theme played loudly. The solo cello plays its first melody in artificial harmonics with answers by the celesta, which leads into the cadenza. The second movement is the only movement with no reference to the opening motive of the first movement.
The cadenza stands as a movement in itself. It begins by developing the material from the cello's second theme of the second movement, twice broken by a series of slow pizzicato chords. After the second time this is repeated, the cello's first theme of the second movement is played in an altered form. After the third time the chords are repeated, a continual accelerando passes through allegretto and allegro sections to a piu mosso section. These sections are frequented by the first movement motive. The piu mosso section features fast ascending and descending scales.
The final movement begins with an ascent to a high D. The oboe begins the main theme, which is based on the chromatic scale. The cello repeats it, then presents a new theme. The cellos of the orchestra repeat this, accompanied by the solo cello playing fast sixteenth notes. At bar 105, a distorted version of Suliko, a song favoured by Stalin and used by Shostakovich in Rayok, his satire on the Soviet system, is played. Then, the flutes play the first theme again. A new theme played in triple time is presented by the orchestra, which is repeated by the cello. Then, the orchestra repeats and alters the theme. The horn, bass instruments and solo cello follow. The bass instruments play a modified version of the theme, which is repeated by the solo cello after. The cello begins playing a new theme that uses exactly the same notes as the opening motif. The modified version that was just played by bass instruments is repeated by the solo cello, accompanied by oboes playing fragments of the new opening motive. The first theme of this movement is played by the string section after, followed by the new opening motive theme in the woodwinds. The opening theme of the first movement is played, answered by the cello. After the third time this is played, the horn plays the theme again in longer notes. Then, the cello plays a passage from the first movement, which is followed by the first theme of this movement played by the woodwinds. This is followed by the first theme of the first movement played by the cellos of the orchestra, accompanied by scales in the solo cello. Then, a modified form of the first theme of this movement is played in the cello. The concerto ends with seven timpani strokes.
Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 25, 1906, and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. He composed his Cello Concerto No. 1in summer 1959, completing the full score at his summer house at Komarovo, near Leningrad, on July 20, 1959. The premiere took place on October 4, 1959, in Leningrad, with soloist Mstislav Rostropovich, to whom Shostakovich dedicated the work, and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Yevgeny Mravinsky.
In addition to the solo cello, the score for the Cello Concerto No. 1 calls for piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bassoon, contrabassoon, horn, timpani, celesta, and strings (first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). The concerto is about 30 minutes long.
As was his tradition for large new orchestral works, Shostakovich entrusted the official premiere to the Leningrad Philharmonic and his longtime interpreter Yevgeny Mravinsky. Following the October premiere, on November 6, 1959, Rostropovich brought the concerto to the United States, performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. Shostakovich was also present for this historic occasion, one of the most notable musical events of the Cold War, and to oversee the first recording of the piece. In the years to come, Rostropovich played the concerto all over the world, making it almost his personal trademark. (Shostakovich would also dedicate his Second Cello Concerto to Rostropovich in 1966.)
Concertos have traditionally been written with specific performers in mind, and none are more intimately associated with their initial protagonists than those of Shostakovich. His two piano concertos were designed for himself and his son, Maxim, respectively; the two violin concertos for David Oistrakh; while both of his cello concertos were inspired by the sound, style, and personality of the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Shortly after the Leningrad premiere, during one of the periodic Cold War thaws, Rostropovich and the composer traveled to the United States for the American premiere, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Last week, I was subbing in the seconds for the Long Beach Symphony's concert that featured Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2. This is the much-lesser-played of Shostakovich's two cello concertos, but I think it's my new favorite. Much of it is dark and moody, with a clever second movement that rollicks madly across constantly-changing meters.
As we know, for many years in the Soviet Union people were greatly deprived of both rubles and bagels, and Shostakovich was among those who witnessed the horrors of starvation, oppression and death all around him. Lynn related a story of Shostakovich having a dream that a truck had arrived with wood to burn for the people to keep warm, but when he awakened and went to the window, he found that the truck actually was carrying dead bodies. (And here's another example that I found of the environment that bred Shostakovich's unique aesthetic, this account of his seventh symphony being premiered by emaciated musicians in the midst of the Siege of Leningrad).
Considering this context, it's not surprising that the simple, jocular street song takes a biting tone, in the context of this concerto. Shostakovich makes it wail, makes it miss a step and sway off kilter, makes it swerve into the grotesque at times. It's a cool movement, my favorite from this piece, for sure. I couldn't find anything on Youtube with Lynn Harrell playing it, but here's cellist Jamie Walton playing that movement with the Philharmonia Orchestra, under Alexander Briger, from his 2008 recording:
Of course, both of Dmitri Shostakovich's cello concertos were written for his friend, the late Mstislav Rostropovich, and here he is playing it in Sept. 1967, just a year after it was written. There was another reason for the inclusion of the street song in this piece, which I found in these Chicago Symphony program notes:
The meat of the work is in the second movement, an expressive essay that begins in tragic reflection and heads for extreme passion. In between is chamber music between the cello and clarinet, and a gentle dance. The cello relentlessly builds to a terrific melodic climax over a tutti ostinato in the orchestra, preparing the way for a loud dramatic recapitulation of the opening material. The movement concludes with the same kind of haunting effect Shostakovich uses in his fifth symphony. A celesta appears and accompanies the cello over wandering string lines.
It is from this deeply remote emotional pocket that the cello begins its cadenza. This cadenza movement mirrors the wide range and capacity of the cello itself, an instrument that encompasses the widest range of any of the string or wind instruments in the orchestra. It begins low and quiet, builds to passionate chords in the middle register, explores effects like pizzicato, then ascends in register with dramatic double stops, ultimately focusing on impassioned melodies and scales that stretch to the highest register of the instrument while quoting the motive from the first movement.
The cadenza prepares the wild manic circus music of the fourth movement. The second theme of this movement at first sounds brand new, but we eventually realize it is the opening motive of the concerto transformed rhythmically. The horn makes this connection obvious and the entire orchestra quotes from the first movement directly, building to a final vigorous statement in the coda.
c80f0f1006