Tchaikovsky’s substantial
Cello Sonata in E minor, dedicated to Weinberg,
is a work from the composer’s early maturity, but already displays
considerable formal and instrumental mastery. It is nevertheless
fairly traditional in its aims and means, at least by mid-20th
century standards. The music is still indebted to Prokofiev
and Shostakovich, but there is not a single trace of blunt imitation,
whereas Tchaikovsky’s innate lyricism is already in evidence.
Structurally, however, the Cello Sonata keeps clear of traditional
models. The first movement Allegro non troppo, in free
sonata form, is followed by a weighty slow movement that at
times recalls the Nocturne of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto.
The third and final movement is another slow Andante concluding
the piece in a bittersweet, autumnal mood.
Although he somewhat
broadened his expressive palette later in his composing life,
Tchaikovsky never really adopted a serial technique. From this
point of view, the Partita stands out in his output
as one of his rare forays into twelve-tone music. The Partita
is scored for an unusual instrumental combination: piano (played
here by Alexander Dedyukhin), harpsichord (played by the composer),
electric guitar and two percussionists. It is cast as a suite
of six movements, all but the final one being short contrasted
character studies. In the first movement Twelve Notes,
the composer plays games with twelve-tone music. In a deliberately
ironic way the cello indifferently spells out the chromatic
scale, first upwards, then downwards, each time with tongue-in-cheek
punctuation from the piano and the harpsichord. The music continues
in much the same vein, never taking itself too seriously. The
following movements (Toccata I , Canon, Toccata II and III)
are short etudes. Tchaikovsky, however, cannot withhold his
lyrical nature for too long, and the Partita ends
with a long, slow, nocturnal movement of great beauty. This
is in spite of a brief but quickly silenced attempt to disrupt
the cello’s reverie.
Lyrics of
Pushkin is the second song cycle written for Vishnevskaya.
The first one Four Poems by Jospeh Brodsky (1965)
was never performed publicly; the Nobel Prize winning poet being
persona non grata in the former Soviet Union at that
time. They were recycled as Four Preludes for Chamber
Orchestra (1984) available on Northern Flowers NF/PMA
9918 reviewed here some time ago. Dealing with Pushkin’s verse,
the composer felt that he had to use simple, direct language
in which melody is prominent, but which would nevertheless keep
clear of well-worn “domestic romance lyrics” (the composer’s
words) while retaining the essential straightforwardness of
the words and the various moods they suggest. The simplicity
of these settings results from the composer’s deep immersion
in Pushkin’s poetic world. The theme of the Poet and of poetic
creation is central to the poems chosen by Tchaikovsky, often
envisaged from a rather disillusioned point of view, as in the
fourth song To the Poet (“Poet, although they love you,
don’t feel proud. In just a moment, the praise is washed away”).
One easily realises what such words might have meant to Russian
composers during the Soviet era! Lyrics of Pushkin
is a beautiful song-cycle and a great piece of music, in which
the composer shows himself the heir of the greatest Russian
song-writer, Mussorgsky. Vishnevskaya sings most beautifully
throughout, with a remarkable tonal and expressive variety,
attentive to the expressive power of both words and music. As
far as I am concerned, this is one of the finest works by Tchaikovsky
that I have heard so far, and the gem amongst this collection.
These performances,
all recorded live, come from the Boris Tchaikovsky Society’s
archives; and are inevitably of varying sound quality. They
still sound good allowing for the distraction of the odd cough
or stage noise. There is nothing serious enough to deter anyone
from enjoying this most interesting release that sheds further
light on this endearing composer’s achievement.
Hubert Culot
for
details 
Mstislav Rostropovich
(cello)ac; Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano)b; Boris
Tchaikovsky (pianoab, harpsichordc)
