Shostakovich: Sonata for viola and grand piano, Op.147 (1975)
Moderato (“Aria”, or “Novello”)
Allegretto (“Scherzo”)
Adagio
Dmitri Dmitrievich’s very last work was begun in June 1975 at Repino – the composers’ retreat on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, where he had finished his last string quartet. The sonata progressed in two bursts that Spring/early Summer, and was completed on 6th July – the final movement having taken him just two days. It was first heard in public on 1st October, just over seven weeks after his death, in the Glinka Hall, Leningrad – played by its dedicatee Fyodor Druzhinin (by then the violist of the Beethoven Quartet), with pianist Mikhail Muntyan. I well remember listening to this live on a crackly car radio, parked in a layby somewhere in south west London: it felt like an extremely tense, emotionally wrought occasion. Happily, their performance was soon captured for posterity by Melodiya in a recording studio, my signed copy presented to me by Fyodor Serafimovich himself in Moscow the following year – an absolutely wonderful performance, in my opinion still unmatched by anyone else.
Swan-song this assuredly is. That he was himself entirely aware of this is communicated through the music in a poignantly lucid way, as if he were experiencing an overwhelming sensation of release, yet at times clinging to the last threads of existence with a terrible desperation. Who could forget the utterly simple, yet disarmingly original opening, as the viola’s softly plucked open strings set up a steady rhythmic pulse over which Shostakovich’s yearning melodies gnaw their way into our hearts. Like the first movement of the violin sonata, this Moderato “Aria” (and similarly the Adagio finale) dictates its own form: freely rhapsodic, yet thoroughly contained and logical, with the suggestion here of a ternary outline. The centre of this scheme is much more agitated, with triplet movement providing the rhythmic impulse at first, but later increasing to semiquavers in the piano part. When the first main theme – a note-row – returns, it steals in tremolando sul ponticello in the highest register of the viola, casting the most extraordinary eerie spell over the scene. All the material is recapitulated in one form or other, eventually returning to a solemn chordal passage on the piano which had previously marked the close of the opening section. There seems to be concentrated into its mere 4½ bars a glimpse through to the very soul of this man at the end of his life: calm, dignified, reconciled.
All Shostakovich experts will have recognised the opening of the next movement (originally entitled “Scherzo”) when it was first heard, since it is an exact transcription of the Prelude to The Gamblers. This opera, based on Gogol’s play of the same title, was begun in 1941, but abandoned during the eighth of 25 projected scenes. Why Shostakovich should have returned to this score, or whether there is any dramatic or psychological relationship between the two works, is hard to ascertain. Any stylistic incongruity which might be detected is hardly more disturbing than with the corresponding movement of the violin sonata (all original material there, of course): the composer returns to similar devices here (eg resonant double-stopping and open strings) by way of exploiting the technical resources of the viola – although in the later sonata the piano writing does not make the same virtuosic demands. Indeed, uncommitted performances have likewise been known to bring the stature of this movement into question; however, the unsympathetic performer will find little here of the same urgency and dynamic force to hide under: subtlety and imagination are essential requirements, if its whimsical and faintly satanical elements are to make their fullest impact. There is a contrasting section, beginning in dusky lower registers of both instruments with quaver movement in waves and ripples, then expanding into a sonorous chorale featuring pizzicato chords and deep bass octaves. This latter passage is lifted from Scene 6 of the opera, where the servant Gavryushka – accompanied on his balalaika – muses to himself on the rich pickings to be gained in the service of his gambling master Ikharev. The sonata follows the action further as the ”second subject” of the Prelude returns, the piano taking over the balalaika’s unison support. When the spiky material of the opening returns it has been affected by the foregoing music in a manner which leaves it in a more subdued state: so, in the end, the movement drifts away on the back of those persistent rippling quavers, stopping suddenly in mid air rather than coming to any pre-determined conclusion.
The melodic interval of a fourth, with which the last two quartets had become obsessed, is once more in evidence in this sonata: the impassioned viola solo which breaks out at the climax of the “Scherzo” is built more or less exclusively on it; and this pitiful cry returns, now softly and introspectively, to introduce the finale and to play a dominating role in its subsequent course. Even more important is the rhythm and accompanying figuration of the main theme, for this is a derivation of the opening of the “Moonlight” Sonata – the most obvious manifestation of Shostakovich’s dedication of this movement “In memory of the Great Beethoven”. Despite a titanic central climax, the Adagio proves to be an extended farewell of the most heartrendingly sweet sadness, yet raising itself in its final 35 bars to comfort and console us all – with little discernible effect on the reportedly tearful audience for its British premiere, given by Cecil Aronowitz and Nicola Grunberg in the Aldeburgh Festival on 14th June 1976. The composer’s widow Irina Antonovna had travelled over to hear it; and having already endured the Soviet premiere itself, the previous October, her emotional state can well be imagined. Indeed, the FSQ met with her in London the following day, when we played “her” Quartet (No.9) in her room at the Savoy. Afterwards, distressed and tearful from having the previous day been reminded all too vividly of her husband’s final burst of creativity, and now of their visit to York together in November 1972, she gave me with a copy of the sonata. Such was – and still is – its emotional impact that it was fully ten years before I could bring myself to perform it.
Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich died on 9th August, having finished correcting the proofs of this sonata just four days earlier – signing them off from his hospital bed. The end of this troubled life seemed as fittingly tragic as so much which had preceded it; yet if this were the price of genius, together with its fruits of beauty and the enrichment of others’ lives, then the sacrifice – and the achievements – demand their rightful place alongside those of other great figures in Humankind’s history.
© Alan George
All Alan’s articles
Author’s note
This essay (together with a recent companion on the violin sonata) was originally intended for a BBC Music Guide on Shostakovich’s Chamber Music (which series was abandoned before this volume reached publication). It may be thought more detailed – descriptively and analytically – than others so far available on MusicWeb; but it is to be hoped that it will whet the appetites of avid readers.
