Yuri Shaporin (1887-1966)
Complete Piano Music
Romance sans paroles (1900)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 5 (1924)
Two pieces from a piano suite (c. 1925-1927)
Deux morceaux (c. 1919)
Ballada, Op. 28 (c. 1934-1959)
Matelot (1922)
Fugue in F sharp minor (1914)
Oriental dance (c. 1905?)
Piano Sonata No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 7 (1926)
Kirill Kozlovski (piano)
rec. 2021, Monikko Concert Hall, Klaukkala, Nurmijärvi, Finland
First recordings, except Sonata No. 2 (first complete recording).
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0621 [83]
Yuri Shaporin, barely known outside Russia, is one of dozens of composers who worked in the Soviet era. It is regrettable that large record companies are too often motivated to record what they are convinced will be a commercial success. Of course, time passes and tastes change, so it might come as a surprise that in 1943 Gerald Abraham in his Eight Soviet Composers called Shaporin’s Symphony-Cantata On the Field of Kulikovo “perhaps the finest musical work Soviet Russia has yet produced”. He placed it above such mighty works as Shostakovich’s 5th and 7th symphonies and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Could one imagine such a statement made today?
Shaporin wrote the first little piece here when he was a mere 13-year-old but this deceptively simple tune with real Russian soul and a fragile beauty shows the future promise. Next up is the 30-minute sonata in its first ever recording, which serves to emphasise my point about record companies. After all, it is a major work almost a hundred years old. Interestingly, pianist Kirill Kozlovski writes in his booklet notes that he detects Nikolai Medtner’s particular influence. While I too find such an influence in the richness of the melodies, I wonder how much of it is due to what seems to be shared among many composers from that part of the world. I also concur with Kozlovski’s assessment of Shaporin as a generally optimistic composer. His music rarely appears burdened with melancholy – another frequent trait in the music of Russian composers. The upbeat writing shows a composer who is enjoying the process of composition, which makes for satisfying listening.
There are other interesting things to discover in Kozlovski’s notes, such as Shaporin’s snail-like composing speed that had him announce works which often never reached fruition. Two pieces from a piano suite are a case in point: no suite ever came into being, so these are the survivors of the intention to write one. They are very enjoyable nonetheless, just as are the Deux morceaux, the second of which is a real contender for earworm status. Written with the theatre in mind, as was much of Shaporin’s output, they survive as a tantalising indication of a large amount of music he wrote for the theatre (which is yet to be brought into a state where it can be recorded).
The Ballada, originally called a Passacaglia as witnessed by the original title page, is a good example of the long gestation of much of Shaporin’s output: the earliest sketches are from almost 30 years before its completion. Kozlovski’s notes makes one realises how complex a work this is, and what influences are to be found in it. He also points out that despite Shaporin’s seemingly traditionalist outlook and apparent rejection of modernism, he was “a truly original and highly skilful composer who can be seen as genuinely himself, rather than an imitator of someone else”. This work shows that. If the lack of pathfinding and rule-breaking examples in his music led to his side-lining after he died, one hopes this disc will allow a new and more realistic assessment.
Matelot is an all too brief knockabout pastiche of the famous
sailor’s hornpipe. It appears, for example, in Henry Wood’s
Fantasia on British Sea-Songs played at the last night of the
BBC Proms. The next piece is a personal expression of the Fugue,
an original view of the form. Then we have the delightful Oriental
Dance, another composition of the young Shaporin .
Finally, we have what Kirill Kozlovsky says is the standout work in this examination of Shaporin’s piano output. Piano Sonata No. 2 written in 1926 is the only work on this disc to have been recorded previously. A complete contrast in mood to the first sonata from two years earlier, this work was dedicated to the great Russian pianist Maria Yudina. It is a complex beast which, as Yudina wrote in a letter to Shaporin, “is difficult beyond measure, because the texture is almost ‘anti-pianistic’, uncomfortable in the extreme”. (Yudina was never known for her tact. She famously wrote to Stalin when he awarded her several thousand roubles that she had donated the money to the Church in a characteristically challenging way most people would never have dared express.) But she went on to say that she rated the work very highly and that for her it expressed “our weeping and contemplating of Russia’s destiny and at the same time each of our own personal destinies”.
The sonata is, indeed, uncharacteristically dark and ominous for Shaporin. It hints at the oppressive nature the Soviet regime exerted upon its citizens. Kozlovski’s description is a great aid to the listener, and very much helps enjoy its symphonic majesty. I particularly agreed with his assessment of the oft-criticized short finale: “I beg to differ: for me the unstoppable, unbalanced run towards the final annihilation is the only psychological credible way to end it.” This mighty sonata, worth a great deal of study on its own, offers more rewards the more often one listens to it. It alone shows the deserved place that the composer carved for himself with his piano works.
Esteemed musicologist Levon Hakobian wrote of Soviet culture: “For a Soviet person – particularly the certain hypothetical, ideal listener that Shostakovich’s music was primarily written for – sound matter (and in fact any other aesthetic reality) was interesting mainly for the existential abysses hiding underneath it.” I leave Kozlovski to round off this review with his closing words which this disc reveals as an accurate summary of the composer’s works: “Yuri Shaporin’s music does indeed hide such existential abysses, which help make it both magnificent and metaphysical art.” This disc is a most valuable contribution to the reassessment of the music of a composer whose works have been overlooked for far too long. Kirill Kozlovski is an obvious admirer of Shaporin’s piano works. His playing is revelatory and will, I am sure, help in the process of reassessment.
Steve Arloff
