Violin Concerto No. 1, Cello Concerto No. 1

Dmitri Shostakovish

album cover

A Russian Super Summit

Having already reined in the wilder elements of his music in response to government scrutiny (see previous page), Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich spent the years after World War II tangled in a complicated dance with authority. The music he wrote during this period operates on several levels: Its surfaces offer enough "people's" content to please the party (victory marches and other nods to Russian bravery), while underneath he slips in more subversive, often bitterly ironic notions.

It's tempting to hear Shostakovich's works as facile patriotic outbursts embedded with cryptic hints; they're more than that. The gifted composer held onto his soul, and shared it in the beautiful, almost confessional cadenzas and solo passages of these two soliloquies for orchestra. The Violin Concerto, written in 1948 but not premiered until 1955, follows the format of Shostakovich's Fifth and Tenth symphonies; it begins with a slow movement, with languid extended lines that seem born of idle reflection. That's followed by a raucous second movement influenced by folk dance (think drunken comrades after a party meeting), a lyrical third, and a victory march finale. At each turn, soloist David Oistrakh, a Russian, stretches the themes out, savoring their myriad dimensions; note the clarity he brings to the tricky rhythmic extrapolations of the final movement.

The cello concerto is played by another Russian superpower, Mstislav Rostropovich with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, which for a while was the welcoming committee for Russian composers in the U.S. Here the second movement, marked "moderato," is spellbinding. It's a study in the extended development of brief melodic "cells" that plays out in half steps and haunted-house shivers from the cello in its upper register.

Ormandy doesn't catch the jumpy nervousness of some Shostakovich lines—that fire is more audible throughout Mitropoulos's reading of the Violin Concerto. But Ormandy and the Philadelphians provide Rostropovich with something equally precious: sumptuous shimmers that cradle and cushion the cello. The sheer sound is one reason this performance towers over others: Few groups bring Shostakovich's enveloping textures to life so vividly.

Genre: Classical
Released: 1956, 1960, Columbia (Reissued 1998, Sony Classical)
Key Tracks: Violin Concerto: first movement. Cello Concerto: second movement.
Catalog Choice: String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 7, 8 & 12, Borodin Quartet.
Next Stop: Ludwig van Beethoven: Triple Concerto, David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sviatoslav Richter, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (George Szell, cond.)
After That: Aram Khachaturian: Piano Concerto, William Kapell, Boston Symphony Orchestra (Serge Koussevitzky, cond.).
Book Pages: 740–741