Haydn, Schumann, and Shostakovich: Joshua Roman, cello, Christophe Chagnard, cond., Northwest Sinfonietta, Town Hall, Seattle, 8.7.2007 (BJ)

 

With the recent death of Mstislav Rostropovich, an epoch came to an end. It may be that we shall never look upon his like again, but let us be more optimistic: as I think they say at British coronations, “The king is dead–long live the king.” Who the latter may be is the interesting question.

There are many aspirants to the cello throne. One of the most exciting among them is Joshua Roman, who became the principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony last year at the age of 22, and who has already achieved prodigies alike as orchestral player, chamber musician, and soloist. Last weekend he presented a special program with the Northwest Sinfonietta dedicated very worthily and appropriately to Rostropovich. The late master was much given to mounting marathons–I remember hearing him at Carnegie Hall, back in the 1960s, performing something like eighteen or nineteen concertos in one breathtaking week of concerts. Roman’s program did not quite attain such gargantuan proportions, but it was marathonic enough, ranging through three centuries with its choice of concertos by Haydn, Schumann, and Shostakovich.

The music itself, I would submit, was of variable quality. The D-major Concerto is the lesser of Haydn’s two concertos for the instrument, and Schumann’s A-minor work is not one of his greater masterpieces either. So it came about that the finest music on the program came at the end, with the Cello Concerto No. 1 that Shostakovich created to give scope to its dedicatee Rostropovich’s extraordinary variety of tone colors, his insouciant virtuosity, and his mercurial, not to say quirky, range of expression.

Young Roman, then, was facing a considerable historical challenge. A few weeks ago, I expressed unbridled enthusiasm about his achievement in performing several fearsomely taxing works, including the solo sonatas of Ligeti and Kodály, in a festival dedicated to 20th-century Central and Eastern European music. I came to this concert, then, with the highest expectations. They were not materially disappointed, but neither were they entirely fulfilled. I do not think I am guilty of revisionism if I suggest that Roman is not yet Rostropovich–not, for that matter, that he would ever want to be a mere copy or epigone. What this phenomenally gifted musician is headed for is to be a great cellist in his own right. His technique is already awesome, and that, once intonation had settled down in the course of the Haydn first movement, is how it sounded on this occasion. Playing a fine Montagnana instrument, he made a gorgeous sound, rich and dark, with none of the nasal quality that can blemish the work of even the most famous cellists. Nor was there any lack of imagination or boldness in his traversal of Haydn’s rather repetitive work, or in his impassioned delivery of the Schumann, where the only improvement I could have wished for would have been a more pointed underlining of the first theme’s curious accentuation. In the Shostakovich, moreover, the central slow–or slowish–movement was ravishingly beautiful, especially when we came to the characteristically Shostakovichian section pitting ghostly cello harmonics against a background of halting phrases on the celesta.

All this was highly accomplished, and much of it was deeply moving. Under Christophe Chagnard’s expert direction, too, the Northwest Sinfonietta provided support that was tidy and musicianly, even if the Town Hall’s acoustics were less than flattering to the overall sound-picture, and Mara Finkelstein’s orchestral cello solo in the gem-like slow movement of the Schumann partnered Roman’s top line to sumptuous effect. Especially admirable were the crisp rhythms and dry sonorities Chagnard drew from his orchestra in the Shostakovich. Here Cynthia Jefferson took brave aim at a first-horn part that amounts practically to a full-scale obbligato or solo, refusing to be daunted by a few fluffed notes, and her marksmanship improved notably as the work progressed.

Why, with all this, do I have to confess that in the end the concert thrilled me less than I had expected? Well, listeners who have never heard the Shostakovich First Concerto played by Rostropovich (or by Steven Isserlis, or by Pieter Wispelwey, whose recording on the Channel Classics label constitutes –though I know recordings can lie– the finest of all performances of the piece I have ever heard) may find it hard to believe that this Seattle performance lacked intensity. But I assure you that, judged by those exalted standards, that was the case. The fast movements were persuasively paced, the cello tone was both strong and sweet, and the phrasing was skillful–yet that last touch of devilry was missing from this supremely challenging music. Never mind. No one who was there need look back on this concert as anything other than a step in the growth of a genuinely top-class talent. The thought of what Joshua Roman will bring to the Shostakovich First when he has reached, let us say, the hoary age of 25 is enough to set any listener salivating delightedly in anticipation.

 

Bernard Jacobson