Ferr\u00E1ndez & Kozhukhin

Differing Shades of Lyricism

Cello Sonatas by Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev

Gavin Plumley

It was Mstislav Rostropovich, the inspiration for the work by Sergei Prokofiev heard tonight and the performer at its premiere, who came closest to describing the unique sound of the cello. It had a voice, he maintained, that was tenorial in quality and therefore profoundly heroic in nature. Certainly, the cello occupies that richest, most human part of the register, inspiring so many lyrical works, as witnessed throughout Pablo Ferrández and Denis Kozhukhin’s program. But the roots of that lyricism are more complex to define than a simple case of cello’s cause and composers’ effect. After all, the idiom found in Prokofiev’s Sonata, composed in 1949, may well be a cautious response to the Zhdanov Decrees of the late 1940s, in which Stalin’s cultural envoy had detailed a list of musical crimes that Prokofiev, like all of his composing colleagues, would have to avoid.

Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff were, thankfully, composing in easier times, at least politically speaking. The lyricism of Brahms’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major, written during a summer vacation on Lake Thun in Switzerland in 1886, speaks of the enduring influence of the contralto Hermine Spies, who visited Brahms there and whose voice breathes through the lines of this work. Brahms’s yearning for Hermine would not, ultimately, lead to happiness, but the longing tones that characterize so much of Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata find their way to triumph. This was not an amorous conclusion but an artistic one, as the composer vanquished former ghosts with a sequence of successful premieres at the beginning of the 20th century.

Triumph likewise typified the peripatetic life of the young Prokofiev, both before and after the Revolution. But unlike Rachmaninoff, who also left his homeland in the wake of 1917, Prokofiev studiously maintained links with Russia, even touring the Soviet lands a decade later. Consequently, he decided to build more lasting bridges with Moscow and Leningrad and in 1932 secured an apartment in the capital. On returning home, Prokofiev managed to keep on the good side of the Soviet authorities, but like Shostakovich would soon experience their censure.

Following World War II, Andrey Zhdanov, Stalin’s cultural spokesman, issued various decrees underlining official approaches to artistic matters throughout the Union. At first, these focused on literary journals, but soon turned their attention to the film industry and finally, on February 10, 1948, the classical music world. The last of these decrees was followed, four days later, by a ban on many of Prokofiev’s works, and the composer was forced to admit his “wrongs” when charges of “formalistic distortions,” “anti- democratic tendencies,” “rejection of the principles of classical music” and “dissemination of atonality” were put to him. It was a dismal time.

Another composer criticized in 1948 was Nikolai Myaskovsky, one of Prokofiev’s oldest friends. Indeed, Myaskovsky had been particularly helpful with revisions to the Cello Concerto Prokofiev had composed on first returning to the Soviet Union. In 1949 he would again prove crucial to the development of another cello project, when Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter gave a compelling performance of one of Myaskovsky’s cello sonatas and duly inspired Prokofiev to write his own.

No doubt reflective of state disapproval, Prokofiev’s Sonata is comparatively straightforward. It begins with a pensive cello cantilena, accompanied by a rocking figure in the piano. There are chromatic inflections and modulations throughout the movement, which first moves towards a more lyrical theme, led by the pianist, and then to bolder, fanfaric statements. Rich piano textures suggest an almost concerto-like approach—Richter was also to give the premiere of this Sonata with Rostropovich—before lyricism wins through in the second subject. A Moderato animato section, beginning like a fugue, announces the development, in which the songful and hectic sides of the Sonata’s character are juxtaposed. Throughout, however, energy never overwhelms lyricism, maintaining a spirit of optimism that was key to “social realism”—almost at any cost.

The second movement is effectively a scherzo and trio, with the former providing high jinks and the latter being as sweetly sung as the second subject in the first movement. Again, caustic elements are kept at bay. And then the finale offers an open-hearted rondo, with the piano recalling the peppy resolve of Prokofiev’s concertos for the instrument and the cello providing both lyricism and wit. The authorities were duly mollified and the Sonata had its premiere at the Moscow Conservatory on March 1, 1950. Sadly, it was the last chamber music composition Prokofiev completed before his death three years later.

Like his young compatriot, Rachmaninoff wrote but one cello sonata. It was composed in 1901, one of few inroads into chamber music. Indeed, Rachmaninoff would abandon small-scale instrumental pieces altogether after writing this Sonata. Nonetheless, it is a work filled with confidence, as the composer confronted the demons caused by the failure of his First Symphony in 1897. In that regard, the Sonata shares its triumph with the contemporaneous Second Piano Concerto. Here, rich melodic strands are shared equally between the instrumentalists, though at times, again echoing the Concerto, the piano threatens to dominate, requiring great restraint as well as virtuosity from any player. Rachmaninoff undoubtedly performed with disarming control when he accompanied the work’s dedicatee, Anatoly Brandukov, at the premiere on December 2, 1901 (just two months after the successful first performance of the Second Piano Concerto).

The Sonata’s home key of G minor is constantly implied during the introductory Lento, though it is only stated outright at the start of the Allegro moderato, with its rousing melodies and whirling piano 16th notes. A more pensive, rhapsodic second subject follows, heralded by the piano, which then passes through the relative major on its way to the dominant. This section is tinged with the swooning tonic minor, again recalling the headiest music of the recent Concerto, as well as looking ahead to the Second Symphony (1906–7). A more antagonistic Allegro scherzando follows, in C minor. The cello constantly switches between pizzicato and spiccato textures, before blooming, once more, into lyrical life. This emotive music is in the relative key of E-flat major, though soon moves to an even more luscious A-flat major for another affecting melody. No emotion is downplayed, particularly in the eruption that leads back to the Allegro scherzando.

Further bounties are offered in the Andante, again introduced by the piano. The two players twist melodies and countermelodies around each other in a winning display of Rachmaninoff’s tuneful gift. Finally, as in the Second Symphony, in which the composer resolutely countered his critics, the Cello Sonata finishes with a bold, elated dance. Its giddy rondo, full of audacious leaps, also has a lyrical heart, though without the nostalgia that characterized preceding movements, as the two instrumentalists drive towards a thrilling close.

Between the two Russian works stands Brahms’s Second Cello Sonata. 21 years separate it from his first contribution to the genre, completed in 1865. The Sonata opens with a bold harmonic gesture, not unlike that in the Third Symphony of three years earlier. Here, however, the motif sounds rather febrile, before the cello soon strides ahead, sailing high up into the treble clef. Occasionally, this too sounds neurotic and it is only when the cello and piano move in tandem towards the second subject that the material becomes truly fluid. A combative relationship returns in the development, opening with a surprising shift to F-sharp minor, followed by more of the restive music from the beginning of the movement. This then takes on a menacing tone, with the cello growling in the depths of its range, before the piano provides a sequence of daring and then reflective gestures, leading to the recapitulation.

The modulation to the “Neapolitan” key at the beginning of the development section in the first movement presages the tonic, F-sharp major, of the following Adagio affetuoso. This is, in essence, a soulful song, prognostic of Brahms’s late “autumnal” style. The Adagio modulates down a semitone for the second section, wavering between F minor and its relative, A-flat major, before returning to the tonic with even more fulsome expression. F minor becomes the home key of the ensuing scherzo, featuring one of Brahms’s virtuoso piano parts. This, in turn, harks back to the first movement, complete with another disruptive modulation (to E minor), before the F-major trio provides a brief moment of relaxation.

It acts as forerunner to the blithe finale, in which the tensions of the previous moments finally dissipate. While there are confrontations here too, as well as a tendency to drift towards the tonic minor, the cello and piano nonetheless work more or less in tandem, driving towards impassioned climaxes and moving into a lied-like B-flat minor theme (reflective of the presence of Hermine Spies). Fluidity of form and sheer variety of material typify the movement, which ends with a dazzling flurry—first heard with Brahms at the piano and Robert Hausmann playing the cello.