Cello Concerto No. 1 in E‑Flat Major

Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, composed in 1959, was written for the brilliant young cellist Mstislav “Slava” Rostropovich. The work also represented for Shostakovich something of a creative renaissance. In the mid-1950s he had suffered a series of personal blows, starting with the sudden death of his first wife, Nina, followed less than a year later by the death of his beloved mother and shortly afterwards a disastrous second marriage. Yet, after what had been a fallow creative period, he appeared to regain his mojo and was again in inspired form with the Concerto. With the march-like opening “Allegretto”, the soloist instantly demonstrates his nonconformity by playing an insistent motto theme “out of key” with the orchestra’s E-flat major. We enter a very different world with the “Moderato'' second movement. Here, it is the orchestra which seems uncertain, while the soloist plays a relatively straightforward yet tender lament. After an impassioned central section, the movement ends eerily with the soloist playing in harmonics, accompanied by muted strings and the twinkling sound of a celesta. As with his earlier Violin Concerto No. 1, Shostakovich links the slow movement and the lively finale with an extended solo cadenza, which involves the Concerto’s opening motto theme. The finale itself is a series of lively folk dances, with a strong flavour of ethnic Jewish music in its second dance theme.