THE UNSUNG HERO

The Soviet cellist Daniil Shafran was a unique performer with a highly individual technique and sense of interpretation. He deserves to be recognised as one of the 20th century’s great instrumentalists, writes Oskar Falta

TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

The Russian cellist Daniil Shafran, one of the greatest musicians of the Soviet era, was born in 1923 to Russian-Jewish parents in Petrograd (soon after renamed Leningrad, today’s St Petersburg). At the age of eight, he started cello lessons with his father, Boris, who became principal cellist of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) under Yevgeny Mravinsky. Two years later, Shafran was accepted into the class of professor Alexander Shtrimer (1888–1961) at the Leningrad Conservatoire.

Shafran made his debut in 1935 with the LPO under Albert Coates and two years later received the first prize at the USSR All-Union Competition for violinists and cellists held in Moscow. This victory led to Shafran’s first recording engagement the same year: Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the LPO conducted by Alexander Gauk. During the Second World War, as the front was approaching Leningrad, several of its cultural institutions were evacuated to safer regions of the USSR: the conservatoire to Tashkent (Uzbekistan), and the Philharmonic Orchestra – along with Shafran’s parents – to Novosibirsk.

Shafran first stayed behind and became a volunteer in the People’s Militia. As the infamous Siege of Leningrad intensified, he left the city and joined his parents in Novosibirsk. There, he appeared several times as soloist with the exiled LPO under the direction of Mravinsky and Kurt Sanderling, and gave concerts in hospitals and for soldiers of the Red Army.

In 1943, Shafran became a soloist with the Moscow State Philharmonic and moved to the capital. His first tour abroad in 1946 took him to Romania, where he gave a cello and piano recital with George Enescu. In the same year he recorded Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata with the composer at the piano (see box, page 63). Shafran continued to take part in competitions, most notably in Budapest (1949 competition of the World Festival of Youth and Students) and Prague (1950 Hanuš Wihan International Cello Competition), where on both occasions he shared the first prize with Mstislav Rostropovich.

Shafran began to give concerts beyond the Iron Curtain in 1960, when he performed at Carnegie Hall with the State Orchestra of the USSR. He returned to the US twice more: in 1964, giving recitals in New York and San Francisco, and in 1977, performing the complete Beethoven sonatas with Anton Ginsburg at Lisner Auditorium in Washington DC. Shafran appeared in Britain for the first time in 1964, in a recital at Wigmore Hall and as soloist at the Royal Festival Hall, both in London. Meeting Carlo Maria Giulini led to Shafran’s collaboration with the conductor and the Vienna Symphony in a televised concert of the Dvořák Cello Concerto in 1973.

Contrary to contemporary belief, Shafran performed to audiences on most continents. For the most part, however, he gave concerts in Russia – including remote regions, where people had never heard the cello before.

Despite being generally conservative in his choice of repertoire, Shafran did perform concertos by contemporary Soviet composers such as Khachaturian and Kabalevsky – the latter dedicating his Second Cello Concerto to Shafran. Unlike other, more versatile string players, Shafran played almost exclusively alone, as a recitalist or concerto soloist. His unique interpretations, live and recorded, inspired audiences with their originality: ‘In Shafran’s hands, even the best-known works undergo a rebirth; they seem new, as if heard for the very first time,’ reflected Alexander Ivashkin in his booklet Daniil Shafran (Moscow, 1980).

From 1962 until his death in 1997, Shafran served on the jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition (first as member, later as its chairman, 1974–90). In 2001, cellist Natalia Shakhovskaya recalled: ‘He broke the trend of the top prizes always being won by our Soviet performers. This roused serious interest in the competition and raised its prestige’ (Daniil Shafran: Cello Solo).

Shafran loved his homeland and, unlike many, never left it, turning down several attractive offers. Although he officially retired from the concert platform in 1993, two years later he appeared once more at Wigmore Hall, in a recital organised by Steven Isserlis, an ardent admirer. The evening was a huge success with Shafran giving nine encores. Two years after that, he died in Moscow.

PRACTICE ROUTINE

Shafran subjected himself to a strict daily regime, his father having taught him to work for many hours without wasting a single second. He started practising at 8am every day, regardless of the time zone, and worked until 1pm or 2pm without taking a break. He would then eat lunch and go for a walk. The walk was far from leisurely, though: Shafran believed in mental practice away from one’s instrument and often figured out new fingering and bowing solutions while strolling outside. Upon returning home, he would continue working throughout the afternoon.He practised for up to eight hours a day, and in order to simulate a real concert situation as closely as possible, he wore a jacket while practising.

Such an uncompromising routine took its toll on Shafran’s social life, too, as he himself admitted: ‘I don’t like celebrations and birthday parties. They interrupt my regime and arrangements for work’ (Daniil Shafran: Cello Solo). Even during an unexpected typhoon in Japan, he stayed in his hotel room and practised. In fact, the only time Shafran didn’t practise was when it was absolutely impossible to do so, such as on long-haul flights. For moments like these, he carried a set square with him and used its edge to imitate a string. The concert day was another rare exception: Shafran worked for only two hours in the morning and then an hour in the hall before the performance, to get used to the acoustics. He kept up this military-style routine throughout his life.

Long hours spent behind the cello from childhood meant that Shafran’s left hand developed in a particular way: he had strong fingers with a large span and flattened, funnel-shaped fingertips, resembling marshmallows. Occasionally injuring his fingertips through excessive practice, Shafran would have them bandaged with plasters and continue to play, as one can observe in several filmed performances. There was no time to heal;Shafran simply had to continue practising and performing.

SHAFRAN BELIEVED IN MENTAL PRACTICE AWAY FROM ONE’S INSTRUMENT AND OFTEN FIGURED OUT NEW FINGERING AND BOWING SOLUTIONS WHILE STROLLING OUTSIDE

SHAFRAN’S INSTRUMENT

As the winner of the 1937 All-Union Competition, Shafran was presented with a cello labelled by the Soviet government as ‘Antonio & Hieronymus Amati, Cremona, 1630’. We know little of the instrument’s provenance, only that it once underwent restoration in Prague by Anton Sitt in 1852. It became Shafran’s stage companion for life. He was separated from it just twice in his lifetime: at the beginning of the war, when the authorities took it into safety (along with other treasures and artworks, for example from the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg), and later, during a repair by the luthier Étienne Vatelot in Paris.

When Shafran passed away in 1997, his widow Svetlana donated the instrument to the former All-Russian Museum Association of Musical Culture M.I. Glinka in Moscow (now the Russian National Museum of Music), where its long-serving luthier and restorer Amiran Pavlovich Oganezov (1935–2015) examined the instrument. In an interview for the Russian periodical Dosug v Moskve (no.6, 2–16 April 2015), Oganezov shared how he shed light on the instrument’s origins and finally discovered that Shafran’s cello was not a work of the Brothers Amati, as previously assumed. Instead, according to Oganezov, the instrument was made in Germany, probably in the 18th century, and its scroll dates from later (the museum certificate suggests 19th century). ‘Shafran could have played on finer instruments – Stradivari, Guarneri, Montagnana – and yet he preferred this Cinderella all along,’ concluded Oganezov.His views coincide with the opinion of Jason Price, founder and director of Tarisio: ‘The cello is certainly not the work of Amati and likely to be of German or Bohemian origin.Furthermore, the head, from photographs, appears to be made slightly later than the body of the instrument.’ It is perhaps an encouraging fact for aspiring string players that Shafran didn’t need a household-name instrument to create a beautiful personal sound.

Shafran’s cello is on the small side, with a back length of 740mm and stop length of 388mm. This, and the fact that he played on a single instrument for most of his career, had a formative influence on his individual playing style – in particular his fingering system, shifting solutions and vibrato.

PLAYING STYLE

Shafran’s left-hand technique was anything but conventional. Early on, he trained his hand to produce equal sound with all five fingers interchangeably. This approach built remarkable strength in his fourth finger and thumb, paving the way for a personalised fingering system unlike any other. Shafran frequently employed the fourth finger beyond the half-string harmonic and the thumb in lower positions – not only in fast technical passagework but also in melodic passages with vibrato.While still a student, Shafran once asked professor Shtrimer if he might also play vibrato with the thumb. He replied:‘Do everything how you want, how you can, and how you think it needs to be done.’ And Shafran did. Isserlis recalls telling Shafran at the dinner after the 1995 Wigmore Hall recital that cellists were going to wake up the next day with an extra finger (in other words, their thumb). Shafran laughed and responded: ‘God gave us five fingers. Why shouldn’t we use them all?’

Shafran’s cello, labelled ‘Antonio & Hieronymus Amati, Cremona, 1630’, now housed in the Russian National Museum of Music

COURTESY RUSSIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MUSIC, MOSCOW

‘SHAFRAN COULD HAVE PLAYED ON FINER INSTRUMENTS – STRADIVARI, GUARNERI, MONTAGNANA – AND YET HE PREFERRED THIS CINDERELLA’

The opening phrase of Schubert, Ave Maria, D839 in Shafran’s interpretation, to be played entirely on the D string. Note the whole-tone extensions between third and fourth fingers and frequent stretches.

Daniil Shafran and Steven Isserlis in Moscow in the late 1980s

SHAFRAN COULD REPLACE A GOOD NUMBER OF SHIFTS WITH A STRETCH, MOVING AROUND THE FINGERBOARD IN AN ALMOST VIOLINISTIC MANNER

Shafran likewise reflected this skill in double-stopped octaves – besides fingering them in the usual manner with the thumb and the third finger, Shafran played octaves with equal ease using the first and fourth fingers across the entire range of the cello. Thanks to the complete command of each finger, Shafran became independent of prevalent fingering solutions, which he thought limited expression.

Moreover, this skill allowed Shafran to play his own arrangements, like the Shostakovich Viola Sonata, with little compromise. Shafran’s use of the fourth finger and thumb outside the limits set by tradition expanded his fingering options and, furthermore, made it possible to apply extended stretches.

Partly because of Shafran’s broad handspan and the shorter stop length of his cello, he could replace a good number of shifts with a stretch, moving around the fingerboard in an almost violinistic manner. Therefore, he was free to keep audible shifting only for expressive purposes (rather than as a means of changing from one position to another) and avoid it altogether in places where he considered it in poor taste. Occasionally, he employed a unique sort of portamento (both ascending and descending), dragging the finger through all intermediate chromatic steps before reaching the destination note.

The most striking (and most frequently imitated) expressive tool used by Shafran was a vibrato that set him apart from other cellists. With his massive fingertips covering a large surface of the string, his vibrato could reach an almost electric speed. His expressive treatment of it was remarkable: non-vibrato (so-called ‘white tone’) could be followed suddenly by an intensely fast vibrato. It became his trademark, known to fans as ‘Shafranism’.

Shafran strongly believed that much as a brush stroke defines a painter, the cellist is defined by bowing technique – in terms of application of bow strokes, articulation and sound production.He preferred to play with looser bow hair and varied the slant of the stick with the help of his right-hand fingers: thus, by using less hair in the lower quarter of the bow, Shafran achieved an equal distribution of arm weight, resulting in a balanced sound throughout the bow. Shafran’s bouncing strokes had a special clarity, as if they were more spoken than sung. He controlled the bow speed and contact point with a watchmaker’s precision, developing a wide palette of dynamic nuances.

MUSICAL INTERPRETATION

Shafran’s liberty in rhythm and tempo was especially feared by his piano accompanists. His pronounced rubato grew even more excessive in his later career, as his pianist Felix Gottlieb remembered: ‘It was sometimes so great that the only chance I had of meeting his unrestrained accelerando was simply to miss out a chord’ (Daniil Shafran: Cello Solo).

In Shafran’s interpretations, composers didn’t always have the last word. Bow strokes, tempos and sometimes even register were subject to change. Living composers were not spared either: when Shafran rather unwillingly learnt Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no.2, he performed it with the usual precision, but changed the tempos and replaced the crescendo on the very last note of the work with a decrescendo – because he considered what had been printed in the score to be unsuitable. When Shafran presented the composer with the altered version of the work, Shostakovich understood that if he insisted on respect for the score, the cellist would refuse to play the piece. The composer finally surrendered: ‘You, Danya, can get away with anything.’ This story corresponds to Isserlis’s reminiscence of Shafran’s aforementioned recital in London: ‘I remember how extreme everything was, especially by that stage, so late in his career.

‘Shafran’s playing just spoke’ – Steven Isserlis

TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

Sometimes he wouldn’t bother to sound a note at all – it was all in his head; and he was absolutely free with the composer’s markings. But it was wonderful – his playing just spoke, in a unique way; as a friend of mine put it at the time, it was as if the single surviving member of a lost tribe of cellists had wandered into our midst.’

One can only speculate whether the unusual physical qualities of Shafran’s left hand and the particularity of his instrument mentioned above contributed to his unique sound. Nevertheless, according to Troels Svane (professor of cello at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, Germany) – who had lessons with Shafran in 1990 at a summer course in Luxembourg – there was more to it than met the eye: ‘It is possible that the combination of Shafran’s smaller-sized cello and his “spade-like” fingertips had an influence on his sound; however, I am sure that his inner sonic conception played a more important role than any other external factors.’

Shafran was a nonconformist in every way. His rigorous work, his musicianship, his admirable mastery of the cello, and the originality of his touching interpretations all set a timeless example. Shafran’s star still shines brightly today.

RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS

Russian Soul Kabalevsky Cello Concerto no.2 Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto Tsintsadze Five Pieces on Folk Themes Nina Musinyan (pf) USSR State SO/Rozhdestvensky;

Leningrad PO/Kabalevsky

CELLO CLASSICS CC 1008 (2002)

Schumann Cello Concerto Kabalevsky Cello Concerto no.1 Haydn Divertimento in D (arr.

Piatigorsky) Falla Suite populaire espagnol; Ritual Fire Dance Nina Musinyan (pf) Russian State SO/Kabalevsky/Kondrashin

OMEGA CLASSICS OCD 1026 (1998)

Recital, Karlsruhe, 6 November 1959 Brahms Cello Sonata no.2 Debussy Cello Sonata Granados Danza española no.5 Schubert Arpeggione Sonata Walter Bohle (pf)

MELOCLASSIC MC 3012 (2016)

Concert Tours in Germany 1957–1973 Britten Cello Sonata Dvořák Cello Concerto Franck Violin Sonata in A major (arr. Delsart) Kabalevsky Cello Concerto no.1 Prokofiev Cello Sonata Stravinsky Suite italienne (arr. Piatigorsky)

Anton Ginsburg (pf) Berlin RSO/

Garaguly/Kabalevsky

MELOCLASSIC MC 3015 (2020)

Dvořák Cello Concerto Schumann Cello Concerto Estonian National SO/N. Järvi; USSR State SO/Kondrashin

MELODIYA MEL CD 10 00877 (2004); ORIG. RELEASE: MULTISONIC (1993)

Legendary Treasures: Daniel Shafran vol.1

Chopin Etude op.25 no.7 (arr. Glazunov) Davydov Cello Concerto no.2 (two movts) Rakov Humoresque and Serenade Shostakovich Cello Sonata Smetana Sketches op.4

Tchaikovsky Chant d’automne;

Mélodie; Valse sentimentale Nina Musinyan (pf) Dmitri Shostakovich (pf) LPO/Mravinsky

DOREMI DHR 7741 (2001)