Sweet treats for sad times in the USSR

SHOSTAKOVICH & KABALEVSKY: CELLO SONATAS

Steven Isserlis and Olli Mustonen Hyperion

Steven Isserlis has been our most eminent and bestloved cellist for decades. His mop of curly hair bespeaks eternal youthfulness, as does his restless urge to explore new repertoire. Look to his performances, and his lined face, looking heavenwards as he plays, reveals a person of great melancholy sensitivity. Few cellists can mould a line with such attention to both light and shade.

That makes him a natural soulmate for the music of Shostakovich, a man who composed music of raw emotion.

This new CD contains his Cello Sonata, described by Isserlis as the greatest cello sonata of the 20th century. It sits alongside the cello sonata by Kabalevsky and two pieces by Prokofiev – three great names of the Soviet era. Presumably, this is why Hyperion put a piece of Russian Revolutionary-era art on the cover, titled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. One expects something sharp and aggressive from the CD inside, or perhaps martial and patriotic. Just occasionally, the music fits the bill. Shostakovich’s sonata becomes violent in the second movement, which Isserlis describes as full of “diabolical forces”. The sonata by Kabalevsky, a loyal servant of the Soviet state but a fine composer, has a fierce perpetual motion machine as a finale.

Yet these moments beautifully offset the music’s deep romanticism. Lyrics border on sickly sweet in both Shostakovich’s and Kabalevsky’s pieces, as if to balance the grimness of the real world (Shostakovich’s sonata was written in

1934, just after the famine that killed around seven million citizens). Isserlis savours these moments, as does his superb pianist Olli Mustonen. The effect is to seal off the music from the world, in a private, subjective space.

Some may prefer the grander sweep of Rostropovich’s classic recording with the composer on the Supraphon label, or the restraint of the recording by Dmitry Yablonsky on Naxos. But for a performance that distils the sweetness at the music’s heart, this is the one.