Prokofiev
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 58; March, from Music for Children, Op. 65 (arr. Gregor Piatigorsky)

Shostakovich
Cello Concerto No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 107

Steven Isserlis, cello; PaavoJärvi conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestrag
Review By Joe Milicia

  Yes, that's Sergei Prokofiev's Cello Concerto, Op. 58, not the much more familiar revision of it which he called a Symphony-Concerto, Op. 125, on Steven Isserlis' new CD, paired with what is now a classic, the Shostakovich First Concerto. It makes for an exciting pairing, especially since the cellist is one of the great virtuosos of our day, backed by a conductor and orchestra with a flair for Twentieth-Century music, with excellent sound from Hyperion.

There are several reasons why Prokofiev's original Cello Concerto is seldom performed or recorded:

1. It's quite unorthodox in structure compared to most concertos from Haydn's to, say, Prokofiev's own Third Piano Concerto and Second Violin Concerto. In the Cello Concerto a brief march-rhythmed opening movement is followed by a longer sort-of-scherzo and a much longer theme-and-variations finale with some very eccentric moments.

2. The writing for the cello part is said to be very unidiomatic. According to an essay by the Russian cellist Alexander Ivashkin, there are awkward fingerings, impossibly sudden shifts between pizzicato and arco, and passages in registers that are impossible to be heard against the orchestra.

3. The revised version, even with its ungainly title of Symphony-Concerto and equally odd structure, was popularized by Mstislav Rostropovich, who assisted the composer in making the piece much more idiomatic for the cellist, though still dauntingly difficult.

However, Steven Isserlis, in his excellent booklet essay for this CD, tells us in regard to the original, "Nobody could claim that it is an easy work, for performer or listener; but I consider it to be a masterpiece. And the better I know it, the more I love it."

The story of the writing of the Concerto and its aftermath is fascinating. It started with fellow Russian émigré Gregor Piatigorsky asking Prokofiev to write a cello concerto for him. The composer began it in Paris in 1933 but then made his momentous decision to return to his homeland, which had become the Soviet Union, and didn't complete the Concerto until 1938. (In between came Lt. Kijé, the Second Violin Concerto, Romeo and Juliet and Peter and the Wolf!) Unfortunately, Soviet authorities would not allow him either to dedicate the concerto to Piatigorsky or to permit the latter to give the premiere performance. The Soviet premiere turned out to be a disaster, and Piatigorsky's eventual American performance with Serge Koussevitsky in Boston was not much of a success.

Prokofiev's interest in the work was revived in 1947 when he heard a very young Rostropovich play it with piano accompaniment. Eventually the two collaborated on what became the Symphony-Concerto, completed in 1952 after an intermediate stage that was labeled "Concerto No. 2." (The full extent of Rostropovich's input is still a matter of debate.) The differences between Op. 58 and Op. 125 are vast. The opening slow march is nearly doubled in length, and now has a sonata form. The "scherzo" is likewise much longer and even more varied in mood, with a lengthy cadenza in the middle. And the finale, while using the same opening theme, contains a quite different set of variations, with an episode partway through that features a mocking treatment of a lumbering waltz tune of one of Prokofiev's enemies in the Soviet Composers' Union. As the new title implies, the Symphony-Concerto gives the orchestra more prominence, and indeed the forces are somewhat larger: Prokofiev added a piccolo, 3^rd and 4^th horns, a third trumpet, celesta and triangle to the Cello Concerto's instrumentation, subtracting only castanets.

I haven't heard Ivashkin‘s renditions of both works on the Chandos set (which also contains the Cello Sonata and the Cello Concertino written for Rostropovich) – though I see that his performance is a couple of minutes slower than Isserlis'. (Ivashkin's overall timings are 38'28" for the Concerto, 41'03" for the Symphony-Concerto.) Decca's "Complete Prokofiev Concertos" bargain set, with Lynn Harrell on cello, includes only the Symphony-Concerto and the Concertino; ArkivMusic wrongly lists the Concerto in place of the latter. Janos Starker's 1957 recording of the Concerto makes considerable cuts in the finale.

All this brings us back (finally) to the performance at hand. Isserlis' booklet essay describes the Concerto as a struggle of "opposing forces of light and dark, of good and evil," with "battle-lines... drawn at the opening of the scherzo" and much more. (I'm finding it fascinating how a number of today's major performers, including conductors like Manfred Honeck in his notes on Dvorak and Bruckner symphonies, describe music programmatically, unabashedly rejecting Stravinsky's modernist claim that music is purely abstract.) Whatever one feels is going on in Prokofiev's strange concerto, it certainly starts out dramatically in Isserlis' and Järvi's performance: a bold march rhythm in the orchestra, a passionate lyric outpouring on the part of the cello (or lyricism verging on hysteria after a few minutes). Midway through this 5 minute and 30 second prologue the music quiets down. The march rhythm returns but never in full force, as the cello rhapsodizes and woodwind passages trail off.

The Allegro giusto that follows starts out with a swirling, energetic theme that will occasionally reappear, as well as other brisk musical material. We hear also, after a few minutes, one of those memorable heroic Prokofiev melodies. It gets transformed in the course of the movement, and the music never returns to where it began: indeed, at one point near the end, the cello previews the main theme of the finale rather than recapitulates the scherzo-like opening. But if the structure is hard for the listener to grasp, Isserlis and Järvi play with vigor and commitment. The orchestra players make the most of some striking woodwind and brass solos and of passages of dance rhythm that seem to have leaped out of Romeo and Juliet.

The finale is a 20-minute set of variations – but with complications. After the C major theme is stated, a mysterious Interludio is heard before the first variation. After the third variation and a cadenza which tosses around the theme in fanciful ways, a second Interludio rather menacingly intrudes. After the fourth and final variation a Reminiscenza brings back the march rhythm and lyric theme of the first movement. And in the coda, the swirling music from the second movement returns and – well, things get crazy before the final chord.

Ivashkin reports on having seen Isserlis play the Concerto with metal strings instead of the Englishman's otherwise preferred gut strings, to bring out passages that would otherwise be lost amid the orchestra. Isserlis doesn't mention this matter in his notes, but whether it's thanks to the steel, Jarvi's sensitive conducting or Hyperion's engineers, one has a sense of hearing every note of the cellist's impassioned – indeed, searing – performance. His love for the work – and sheer ability to play it – could hardly be more evident.

By comparison with the Prokofiev Concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto (1959) is downright Haydnesque – at least in clarity of structure and texture, with a prominent solo horn the only brass representative. (Shostakovich said he was much influenced by the Symphony-Concerto, though his concerto and Prokofiev's are worlds apart, except perhaps for the timpani punctuation and a number of sardonic moments.) Isserlis and Järvi offer a very fine reading of the Shostakovich overall. The opening movement is closer to a true Allegretto than in some performances (compare a very fast, though certainly exciting performance with Mischa Maisky and Leo Sibersky on YouTube), and I like the meaty sound of Isserlis' cello in this movement in particular. If I have any reservations, they come from comparisons with Rostropovich's landmark 1960 recording with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra – which is sonically still very decent as well. The moderate tempo of their first movement is so tautly controlled that it provides its own excitement, and the slow movement has a tragic intensity that simply feels missing on the new recording (and most others), however beautifully played by both Isserlis and the Frankfurt orchestra. The famous duet between cello in harmonics and celesta, near the end of the slow movement, sounds eerie enough on the present recording but not devastated, as Rostropovich makes it seem. Still, Isserlis is imaginative and engaging in the long cadenza that follows, and the finale is as propulsive and gripping as any I know.

A brief but pleasing encore concludes the disc: an arrangement by Piatigorsky (appropriately enough) of a march from Prokofiev's solo-piano Music for Children. The March melody has Prokofiev's unique musical profile, and Isserlis plays it with affection and incisive rhythm.

Hyperion's engineers vividly capture the many colors of Isserlis' cello sound, without making the solo instrument too prominent against the orchestra. Good stereo imaging allows the many orchestral solos of both works to stand out.

Performance: for Prokofiev,   for Shostakovich

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