Cello Sonata in C major Op.119 (1949)

“I am fascinated with your crazy instrument,” said Sergei Prokofiev to Mstislav Rostropovich. It was as though the composer, who was in his late fifties at the time, had just discovered the cello. And in a sense he had: a stunning performance by the then unknown Rostropovich of the Concerto in E minor, a work long regarded as impossible, had revealed to him all kinds of exciting new possibilities. With Rostropovich to advise him on technical matters, he undertook a whole series of projects involving the cello, beginning with the Sonata in C major in 1949.

The excitement of the discovery is clearly perceptible in the Sonata in C major which, ever since its first performance by Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter, has been a favourite item in the cello-and-piano repertoire. The serious-minded opening theme is perfectly conceived for the bottom register of the cello. If the Gorky quotation inscribed on the manuscript, “Man - that has a proud sound,” has any direct reflection in the music, this is it. Certainly, it most effectively offsets the next main theme introduced by the cello, a more romantically inclined melody equally well conceived for the upper register of the instrument. There are other themes, including one heard at an early stage on the piano, but it is the two cello melodies that attract the most interesting colour combinations during the development - including one particularly striking episode where the cello bravely projects the opening theme against violently repeated chords on the piano. Towards the end of the recapitulation that episode is recalled with the roles reversed, the violent chords now transferred to a robust pizzicato on the cello.

The Moderato is a conventionally shaped scherzo with good-humoured, even frivolous, often bizarre-sounding outer sections and a melodious (Andante dolce) middle section where the cello is re-united with the singing voice and thoughtful personality that traditionally belong to it. Though more extended, the Allegro ma non troppo last movement is similarly shaped in that at the heart of it there is a slower (Andantino) episode that stands out for its expressive quality. To a rocking accompaniment on the piano the muted cello presents a poignant variation of the cheerful opening theme of the movement and then, as the piano takes up the melody, buzzes round it in eerie tremolandos. The Allegro material returns in its original form but the climax of the movement, of the whole work in fact, is a massively scored recall of the serious-minded opening theme of the work. “Man” is an even prouder sound here.

“I am fascinated with your crazy instrument,” said Sergei Prokofiev to Mstislav Rostropovich. It was as though the composer, who was in his late fifties at the time, had just discovered the cello. And in a sense he had: a stunning performance by the then unknown Rostropovich of his Concerto in E minor, a work long regarded as impossible, had revealed to him all kinds of exciting new possibilities. With Rostropovich to advise him on technical matters, he undertook a whole series of projects involving the cello - the Sonata in C major, the rewriting of the Concerto in E minor as the Sinfonia Concertante, and two works he unfortunately didn’t live to complete, a Concertino and a solo Sonata.

The excitement of the discovery is clearly perceptible in the Sonata in C major which, ever since its first performance by Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter in 1949, has been a favourite item in the cello-and-piano repertoire. The serious-minded opening theme is perfectly conceived for the bottom register of the cello. If the Gorky quotation inscribed on the manuscript, “Man - that has a proud sound,” has any direct reflection in the music, this is it. Certainly, it most effectively offsets the next main theme introduced by the cello, a more romantically inclined melody equally well conceived for the upper register of the instrument. There are other themes, including one heard at an early stage on the piano, but it is the two cello melodies that attract the most interesting colour combinations during the development – including one particularly striking episode where the cello bravely projects the opening theme against violently repeated chords on the piano. Towards the end of the recapitulation that episode is recalled with the roles reversed, the violent chords now transferred to a robust pizzicato on the cello.

The Moderato is a conventionally shaped scherzo with good-humoured, even frivolous, often bizarre-sounding outer sections and a melodious (Andante dolce) middle section where the cello is re-united with the singing voice and thoughtful personality that traditionally belong to it.

Though more extended, the Allegro ma non troppo last movement is similarly shaped in that at the heart of it there is a slower (Andantino) episode that stands out for its expressive quality. To a rocking accompaniment on the piano the muted cello presents a poignant variation of the cheerful opening theme of the movement and then, as the piano takes up the melody, buzzes round it in eerie tremolandos. The Allegro material returns in its original form but the climax of the movement, of the whole work in fact, is a massively scored recall of the serious-minded opening theme of the work. “Man” is an even prouder sound here.