First, the CRR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Naci Özgüç, is to accompany the French cellist Bruno Philippe in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat major, Opus 107. In the second half, the orchestra will play Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No 8 in G major, Opus 88.
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his four-movement Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat major for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich in 1959; the first performance was given (by Rostropovich) in Leningrad in October that year. In common with Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante (which Shostakovich greatly admired), this concerto is regarded as one of the most difficult works for solo cello. The second, third and fourth movements are played without a break. The second movement, initially elegiac in character, leads into a long cadenza that can be seen as a movement in itself. The final movement, meanwhile, features a distorted version of Suliko, a Georgian folk song – much favoured by Stalin – that Shostakovich had previously used in Antiformalist Rayok, his satire on the antiformalist campaign in the Soviet Union that followed the infamous Zhdanov decrees of 1948, which condemned any form of art that did not serve a social purpose and made strict adherence to socialist realism mandatory.
Bruno Philippe, born in 1993, studied the cello at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. From 2014 to 2018 he received tuition at the Kronberg Academy in Germany with Frans Helmerson, meanwhile participating in master classes with David Geringas, Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Pieter Wispelwey and Clemens Hagen at the Salzburg Mozarteum.
In 2014 he won the Nicolas Firmenich Prize at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and was subsequently awarded both Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the prestigious ARD International Competition in Munich. He also received Special Prizes at the Emanuel Feuermann Competition in Berlin in November 2014, and at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in June 2015. In 2017 he was a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels; in 2018, meanwhile, he was named ‘Instrumental Revelation of the Year’ at the Victoires de la Musique Classique award event. Following the release of his recording of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites in 2022, Gramophone magazine wrote: ‘Philippe’s principal virtues are the way he allows the music to dance and his easy, unforced manner of projection.’
Dvořák’s four-movement Symphony No 8 in G major, Opus 88, was composed in 1889 on the occasion of the composer’s admission to the Prague Academy. Many of the themes are based on Bohemian folk music; in particular, the third movement (a melancholy waltz in G minor that has become a popular classic) bears a marked similarity to a Bohemian folk dance. The tempestuous finale, meanwhile, is a complex theme and variations. Programme notes by Peter Laki for a 2010 performance by the National Symphony Orchestra tell us the following about this movement: ‘The variations vary widely in character: some are slower and some are faster in tempo, some are soft (such as the virtuosic one for solo flute), and some are noisy; most are in the major mode, though the central one, reminiscent of a village band, is in the minor. The music is always cheerful and optimistic.’
The Dvořák should provide a much-needed feeling of relief and relaxation after the high-wire tension of the Shostakovich. One feature that both works have in common is the prominent part given to the timpani. This concert is highly recommended.
