This is one hell of a
performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. Emmanuelle Bertrand
and conductor Pascal Raphé team up to produce one of the most intense
and neurotic versions yet of this intense and neurotic piece. In the
outer movements, they adopt fleet tempos that emphasize the music’s
twitchy edge, and the engineers daringly balance Bertrand a touch less
forward then usual, comfortably within the ensemble. This highlights
every mocking grunt and snort of the wind section – listen to the
contrabassoon in the first movement’s second subject. It’s unforgettably
vivid and to the point.
The slow movement and ensuing cadenza, by contrast, are intense in a different
way:
slow, hushed, and grave (save at the anguished climax of the former). I
was particularly pleased that Bertrand was able to keep her usually
adenoidal breathing in check at the start of the cadenza. Indeed,
although a certain amount of huffing and puffing seems to come with the
territory in this concerto, Bertrand is no worse than many of her
colleagues, and she at least has the excuse of being nakedly expressive
to a degree that makes you fear for her mental health. The horn,
clarinet, and timpani soloists also are all excellent.
The couplings are interesting and apt, and no less well done.
Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata still isn’t all that well known. It dates
from the time of the First Piano Concerto, before the Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk debacle, and so represents his mature early style. It’s a big,
serious, very beautiful piece that both Bertrand and pianist Pascal
Amoyel play with the attention to detail that it deserves. The Moderato
for cello and piano is a recently discovered fragment that presumably
dates from about the same time as the Sonata, and makes an apt encore.
Still, it’s the concerto that most lingers in the mind here – it’s just
sensational, and may well become your “go to” version of the piece. (David Hurwitz)
