Classic CD: Prokofiev & Shostakovich, Cello Concertos
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
William Dart
13/06/15
William Dart
13/06/15
Verdict: "English cellist fuses fire and
soul in Russian masterpieces"
5/5
Shostakovich's First Concerto is rightly
popular, possibly because it so immediately evokes the paranoia of living in
Stalinist timesSteven Isserlis is a man with a sprightly and sometimes spiky
sense of humour. On his website, among charming literary rambles and a recent, beautifully
turned tribute to his teacher Jane Cowan, he discusses enthusiasms that include
Fred Bassett cartoon books and lists his hates, from Delius to caviar and
tinned tuna.
Isserlis is coy with his recordings. Rather
than a checklist of his many releases, we get pithy observations on a select
few. At his most wry, he assesses a 1999 set of reissued performances as
"a slightly mixed bag -- but it's cheap".
Even without acknowledging seconded
appearances on marketing ploys like Music for Dinner Parties and Zen Classics,
Isserlis has created a substantial discography.
His new recording of Russian cello concertos
with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Jarvi is up with his
best. Shostakovich's First Concerto is rightly popular, possibly because it so
immediately evokes the paranoia of living in Stalinist times, dramatically
caught in its stalking horn solos.
If music could tip-toe, then Isserlis does
just that at the beginning, while Jarvi waits patiently to hurl massive
crescendos that warn of dangers lurking ahead. How cleverly the almost Elgarian
lushness of the second movement underlines the irony of beauty surviving in
bleak times.
After this, a masterly five-and-a half-minute
Cadenza, a movement in its own right, makes me realise why this cellist's 2007
recording of the Bach solo suites is never far from my player.
Prokofiev's E minor Concerto Opus 58 is a
comparative rarity, begun in Europe in 1933 and finished five years later after
the composer's return to the Soviet Union.
It may have a troubled history but one can
easily sense the thrill that the score's original instigator, cellist Gregor
Piatigorsky, might have felt were he able to hear Isserlis' effortless
navigation of its slippery opening march.
The scherzo of Prokofiev's Allegro giusto is
like a sleek thunderbolt, while the musicians' brilliant meld of fire, ice and
lyricism perfectly catches the many shifting moods of the 18-minute Theme and
Variations that concludes the work.
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