TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASSIC

Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata is a cornerstone of the repertoire, but with the composer’s own interpretative view seemingly shifting during his lifetime, it’s hard to know what he really meant. Cellist and Shostakovich scholar Elizabeth Wilson examines the puzzle of the different editions

Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata op.40 is one of the composer’s most frequently performed works, and has long been considered a classic of cello literature. Nevertheless, nearly 90 years after its creation, the composer’s interpretative intentions are still open to dispute.

Written between August and September 1934, the Cello Sonata was a deliberate departure from the daring and experimental style of Shostakovich’s earlier compositions. It differs radically from the two major works that frame it in time: the boisterous First Piano Concerto and the grandiose, Mahlerian Fourth Symphony.

The composer and critic Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky, a friend of Shostakovich from early conservatoire days, published a preview of the sonata in the newspaper Krasnaya gazeta shortly after its completion, praising it for being Soviet without bearing a loud ideological title like ‘Turksib’ or ‘Dnieprostroi’ (names of a railway and a power station respectively, symbols of Soviet industrialisation). Rather, its Sovietness lay in its simplicity, which made the work accessible without recourse to ‘facile popularisation’. Indeed, Shostakovich consciously rejected the complexities and ‘over-sophistication’ of his previous musical language, preferring to revisit classical models, Schubertian melody and Beethovenian structures, while his composition teacher Maximilian Steinberg believed the first movement bore the influence of Fauré.

A DECEPTIVE SIMPLICITY?

At the time of the sonata’s creation Shostakovich defined its style as neo-Classical, claiming that ‘purity of language’ was one of its chief virtues, although he warned that one had to ‘categorically draw the line between simplicity and simplification’ (Vechernyaya krasnaya gazeta, January 1935). In a radio interview from 1935 he even called the second movement a minuet. One wonders if he had in mind the second movement of Brahms’s E minor Cello Sonata op.38, a work steeped in the traditions of the past. Yet his statement is disingenuous, given the movement’s decidedly grotesque overtones, with hammering accents at the start of every bar in the piano’s theme and bass-line, while the cello’s accented pairs of accompanying quavers make for a mechanically repetitive effect, recalling thrusting pistons and clanging machinery rather than the elegant 18th-century dance. Only the simplistic themes of the central ‘trio’ could perhaps have found a place in some subversive Haydn minuet.

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1950

Interestingly, it was precisely this ‘simplicity’ that raised eyebrows at the first performances of the Cello Sonata outside Russia (Glasgow in October 1935; Prague in November 1935), after the Soviet premiere on 25 December 1934. The music was criticised as a throwback to the salon style of a previous age, a disappointment, a retrograde step in Shostakovich’s development.

In fact, the Cello Sonata was created just when Soviet cultural ideologues were puzzling over to how to apply Socialist Realist dogma to music. The principles of Socialist Realism were best defined in 1933 by Maxim Gorky in regard to Soviet literature. Shostakovich was seen to comply with these principles in the Cello Sonata through using Classical sonata form, something he had abandoned after his First Symphony (1924–5). In this he also anticipated his Fifth Symphony of 1937, by which time the use of Classical forms had become an expediency. To quote the British music writer Malcolm MacDonald, the Cello Sonata was endowed with ‘prophetic retrospection’.

The opening page of the manuscript sketch of Shostakovich’s 1934 Cello Sonata

COURTESY OF IRINA SHOSTAKOVICH

The Cello Sonata’s ‘simplicity’, of course, had nothing to do with ideology or ‘salon style’, but rather with Shostakovich’s masterly handling of material. One could say the bare, essential textures were innovative in themselves, ensuring that his op.40 became one of the few works in the literature that successfully deals with habitual problems of balance between cello and piano.

Furthermore, Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata is unusual in that it continued to evolve after its creation in terms of performance and editorial history. The composer himself can claim responsibility for this as the pianist at the first performances with the work’s dedicatee, the cellist Viktor Kubatsky, and in the two recordings made with Daniil Shafran and Mstislav Rostropovich in 1946 and 1957 respectively. This evolution pertains mainly to tempos and metronome markings, and I list below these variants as they appear across several sources (table 1).

Victor Kubatsky and (right) Daniil Shafran

The final notes of the Cello Sonata on the autograph score, dated ‘begun 14 August 1934, completed 19 September 1934’ and signed by the composer

EVOLUTION BETWEEN EDITIONS

Significant differences already exist between the original sketches and the clean autograph score of 1934, which served as a basis for the first edition. According to the cellist Boris Dobrokhotov, a close friend of Kubatsky, the rehearsals prior to the first performance were quite tense. This was partly due to the break-up of Shostakovich’s marriage that summer while he was staying at a rest home in Polenovo. Kubatsky had also come to Polenovo, specifically to persuade Shostakovich to write a new work. After his wife Nina’s departure, Shostakovich played through piles of cello-and-piano repertoire that Kubatsky had brought with him in order to stimulate the composer to write his own cello sonata.

On receipt of the cello part of Shostakovich’s work, Kubatsky started making changes to it, even before seeing the complete score. His suggestions were then tried out in rehearsal with Shostakovich, who – being pragmatic in seeing compromise to be necessary in establishing practical solutions – agreed to some (if not all) of them.

The 1935 edition for the most part represents Shostakovich’s original ideas about tempo, while incorporating various changes to the instrumental parts. These include in the first movement the cello’s extra notes in the transition after the piano’s first statement of the second subject, when the cello’s single bass G found in bar 68 of the composer’s sketch has been extended into a further two bars of accompanying notes leading into figure 7 (bar 71). It is a change that Shostakovich repudiated later. In the meantime, it became well established outside Russia when the Soviet-born American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky added the Cello Sonata to his repertoire in the late 1930s. The ‘extra notes’ are evident in his studio recording of 1940 and also in his edition of the Cello Sonata published in 1947 (Leeds Music Corporation/Anglo-Soviet Music Press).

Shostakovich specifically negated what he termed the ‘Kubatsky edition’ (the 1935 edition) in 1958 while in Oxford for an honorary doctorate awarded by the university. At a private party given by Hugh and Alexandra Trevor-Roper in their Christ Church college drawing room, the cellist Rohan de Saram and his pianist brother Druvi gave a performance of the sonata using the Piatigorsky edition. De Saram told me (and this is confirmed in Isaiah Berlin’s description of the event) that Shostakovich upbraided him for playing the extra notes in the second subject, and energetically crossed them out of his part, blaming both Piatigorsky and Kubatsky for the whole thing.

SHOSTAKOVICH UPBRAIDED DE SARAM FOR PLAYING THE EXTRA NOTES IN THE SECOND SUBJECT, AND ENERGETICALLY CROSSED THEM OUT OF HIS PART

Rostropovich used to tell of an additional change made by Piatigorsky in the second-movement trio, where a fancy spiccato bowing and changed register replaced Shostakovich’s effective passage of glissando harmonics (from figure 28; bars 76–87). Rostropovich decided to learn this more virtuoso version to see Shostakovich’s reaction. The composer laughed, and insisted that he much preferred his original idea, simply played legato.

Other changes in the cello part of the 1935 Triton edition include the transformation of two-voiced double-stops into four-part chords in the first-movement development, and in the second movement, giving the cello double octaves on the high repeated Gs just before the start of the trio. Here the cello’s accompanying triplet passagework is changed to ascending rather than descending patterns, with better effect. On the other hand, the cello’s sul ponticello at the recapitulation of the first section, clearly marked in the autograph score (see below), has been removed. Again, in the first movement a whole bar is added to the piano part at around bars 165–6 (a few bars after figure 15), allowing the cello to play an extra up-beat A (on the first octave of the A string) before ascending the octave in a dramatic crescendo.

Gregor Piatigorsky popularised the Cello Sonata outside Russia

SCORE COURTESY OF IRINA SHOSTAKOVICH

Title page of the 1935 Triton first edition, autographed by the composer

In the third movement, the only significant change lies in the tempo indication, it no longer being Adagio but rather a slower Largo. As for the finale, the sketches give no tempo indications at all, whereas the autograph score marks the opening as Allegretto with a metronome marking of q=152. Then the tempo remains the same.

On the other hand, the Triton edition, which has the same initial markings, goes on to change the tempo to Più mosso in the second interlude, and gives a still faster tempo for the third. What is lacking in the printed Triton version to make the classical Rondo form clearly evident is the marking of the return of the refrain in the cello’s bass at Figure 57 as q=152 (tempo 1). Yet Shostakovich added this indication in pencil in his own copy of the first edition, thereby correcting what was an obvious omission in the printed version. This allows the refrain to be played at the same tempo throughout, except at its very last appearance, which is governed by the speed of the cello’s semiquavers at figure 63 (bar 242). We don’t know how much Kubatsky influenced these changes, but certainly in later years the composer ‘blamed’ him for them.

The next Russian edition, published in 1960, reflects a major shift in Shostakovich’s perception of the sonata, a result of his performing experience over the years. Those who heard his concerts with Kubatsky reported that he played with maximum clarity and calm. In his reminiscences (published in 2000), Dobrokhotov wrote that Shostakovich’s ‘interpretation of the first movement did not recall a romance, but was far more biting and malicious […] The second movement was played moderato, very rhythmically, bristling with spikiness, but with inner calm.’

THE SHOSTAKOVICH RECORDINGS Shostakovich’s own recordings of the sonata, made with Shafran and Rostropovich, rather precisely reflect the interpretative differences between the 1935 and 1960 editions (table 2). In 1946, Shafran underlines the calm expressiveness in the firstmovement exposition, while the development pushes forward impetuously, its drama in chilling contrast with the coda. He and the composer respect the Triton edition tempo markings in the second movement, characterising the articulation through the paired slurring and accents. Shafran achieves a humorously outlandish effect with the harmonic glissandos. The finale also observes the Triton tempo indications, the main theme or refrain starting relatively slowly, the music speeding up as indicated.

Rostropovich and Shostakovich in 1959, after the Moscow premiere of the composer’s Cello Concerto

The tempos are altogether faster in the recording with Rostropovich in 1957, although not always as fast as the revised metronome markings in the 1960 edition. In particular, the second movement, which got progressively faster in performance, by now had morphed into a ‘scherzo’ (as later acknowledged by the composer) with a speed of q= c.182.

The gradual gathering of speed over the two decades after the sonata’s creation inevitably influenced the character of the music, adding a more forward impetus to the fast movements and characteristic intensification of tension throughout the development sections. By 1957, the Largo’s unified archlike structure is emphasised, requiring certain ‘logical’ changes to the dynamics, whereas all tempo changes are eliminated in the finale, giving it more unity.

Shostakovich probably played with more thought and care in the earlier recording with Shafran. Rostropovich recalled how he was in a hurry to leave the studio and go out to lunch, not thinking for a minute that the recording would be regarded as a historic document. And although it achieved virtuosity, the clarity of the fast playing was probably impaired because Shostakovich was starting to display the symptoms of the illness that eventually affected the use of his hands.

The sul ponticello marking in the autograph score of the second movement recapituation, which was removed for the 1935 Triton edition

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ELIZABETH WILSON. SCORE COURTESY OF IRINA SHOSTAKOVICH

Rostropovich, David Oistrakh, Benjamin Britten and Shostakovich

I WITNESSED A MEETING BETWEEN SHOSTAKOVICH AND BRITTEN IN MOSCOW IN APRIL 1971, WHEN THE FORMER REMARKED, ‘BEN, WE COMPOSERS HEAR MUSIC TOO FAST IN OUR HEADS’

LATER EDITIONS

The 1960 edition was followed by a reprint by Musica Edition in 1964. In 1971 another new Soviet edition was published, where further changes were essentially minimal, concerning small details. This last became the basis for the complete works edition, published in 1996 and 2019 by DSCH in Moscow. At the time, it represented Kubatsky’s last word as editor (he died that year). He had been careful to consult the composer on every minor point. While glad to establish the new tempo markings, Shostakovich was now indifferent to some of the peripheral details and left Kubatsky with a free hand. As we know from other cases, such as Yevgeny Mravinsky’s and Leonard Bernstein’s radically different interpretations of the Fifth Symphony’s finale, Shostakovich could approve diametrically opposed performing versions, provided they were convincing in themselves. Yet Kubatsky could not help fuming at cellists for misunderstanding the sonata and for ‘distorting’ the tempos and character, urging them to ‘go back to Shostakovich!’ according to a 1968 letter to the composer himself. Kubatsky never mentioned which edition he favoured, nor his own role in the so-called distortions!

In all this we should take into account the composer’s ambivalent relationship with the metronome. I myself witnessed a meeting between Shostakovich and Britten in Moscow in April 1971, when the former remarked, ‘Ben, we composers hear music too fast in our heads.’ This is probably why Shostakovich inserted metronome markings only after hearing a performance with a trusted interpreter. However, changes to tempo indications (for example, a moderato becoming an allegro) carry a different weight, for they also serve to indicate the character of the music.

If the final word rests with the composer, in this case it does not serve to clarify the confusing issues. When asked by Dobrokhotov which of the tempo variants were correct, Shostakovich gave an interesting answer: ‘During my lifetime, performance interpretations have begun to accumulate. I believe that it is possible to play the sonata according to my autograph; after all, I created the score as I was composing the sonata when the text sounded very clear in my inner ear. Perhaps the truth can only be found there.’ Yet he contradicted this statement when in 1973 he was asked to approve a recording by cellist Fedor Luzanov accompanied by Alexei Nasedkin. He did not authorise its release, and in a letter dated 3 May he wrote: ‘It is evident these wonderful musicians […] learnt the sonata according to the old [Triton] edition where the tempo indications were Kubatsky’s. I ask insistently that the musicians learn the sonata according to the 1964 edition (Musica Edition, Moscow), and that they carefully check their interpretation against the text, so as to eliminate all the defects of their performance, in which they are not to blame, but for which the old edition is guilty.’

The author wishes to thank Irina Shostakovich, the composer’s widow, for permission to reproduce images of the manuscript, and Olga Digonskaya from the Moscow Shostakovich archive for her generous help and comments.