From Eastern Europe
Marie-Elizabeth Hecker (cello)
Martin Helmchen (piano)
rec. 2019/23, Sendesaal, Bremen, Germany
Alpha Classics 827 [2 CDs: 147]

In this recital Marie-Elizabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen provide a generous account of notable works for cello and piano written by composers in Russia, stretching from Rachmaninov’s G minor Sonata written in 1901 to Alfred Schnittke’s First Cello Sonata in 1978. One comes away enriched and enlightened. It’s also such a well-planned recital that its length isn’t an issue. I happily sat and listened attentively to nearly two and a half hours of varied and engaging music. Part of what made that easy to do was the very thoughtful sequencing, non-chronological and highly illuminating.

Hecker and Helmchen begin with Shostakovich’s D Minor Sonata from 1934. It’s an intelligent starting point not least because one hears Shostakovich looking backwards as well as to possible new directions. He talked at the time of wanting to find a clear and simple musical language and seemingly felt he would find some of this by observing strict adherence to sonata form in the first movement. This works well, and the lovely gentle opening of the movement with the piano’s rocking three quaver motif supporting a lyrical cello melody does sound unlike the composer Soviet audiences must have thought they knew as a provocative new voice with Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk having been premiered earlier in the year. However, the second movement scherzo has a deliberately clumsy feel to it, a calculated roughness which recalls in spirit at least some of the opera’s coarser elements. Hecker and Helmchen revel in these contrasts and they give a greater coherence to the scherzo than some other accounts. Shostakovich’s writing here can sound relentless: accents not just on the first beat of the bar in the piano part but also on the first of each of the three two quaver groups in the cello. In these performers’ hands though there’s a controlled disruptiveness and focus which is well integrated with the musical line and a clear sense of direction. The Lady Macbeth influenced Largo which follows is lent into with passion and the Rondo-like final movement is both virtuosically played and effusively alive. It makes for an excellent curtain raiser.

The next piece, Schnittke’s Sonata No. 1 for cello and piano , makes for a thoughtful progression. The influence of Shostakovich is much in evidence, for example in the ferocity of the second movement Presto and the passion and intensity of the cello’s opening theme of the finale, every note accented, its semitonal progression only adding to the sense of anguish. Hecker and Helmchen have the style and sensitivity to match these often hyper-expressive modes that Schnittke seems to be striving for. Their playing of the first movement Largo has a delicate poignancy and elusiveness which feels entirely fitting. They succeed triumphantly in the Presto. The ferocity is there but at the same time Hecker brings absolute clarity to Schnittke’s ingenious and daunting cello line, mesmerising quaver groups suggesting an unending fugue subject which have to be played ultra quietly at the movement’s start. Underneath, Helmchen perfectly judges the menacing piano part which develops into unsettling chord clusters and both players build perfectly from there to a thrilling conclusion. It’s a tribute to them that the concluding Largo doesn’t feel like an anticlimax after that but a fitting, rather beautiful, somewhat ambiguous conclusion.

It’s a shock to be confronted with neoclassical Stravinsky next after that. His Suite Italienne, based on his ballet Pulcinella, which rewrites the music of Pergolesi and other composers, receives a suitably idiomatic performance here. I loved the wit and at times archness that the duo bring to the pieces. A rather incongruous selection compared with the other pieces on the disc, it provides some welcome lightness, which I suspect is the point. Almost exactly contemporaneous with the Shostakovich, it’s a universe apart.

Mieczysław Weinberg’s Cello Sonata No. 2 opens the second half of the recital. It was commissioned by Rostropovich who became acquainted with the Moscow based Polish composer through Shostakovich. Indeed Shostakovich was writing his First Cello Concerto for

Rostropovich at the time and Weinberg through his contact with Shostakovich seems to have been influenced by that work in this Sonata, particularly in the Allegro finale. There are a host of other influences too not least folk music and Klezmer. There’s also a Bartókian tinge to some of the writing. The first movement is dominated by the cello line which has an unrelenting sense of despair, but Hecker plays it with skill and a surprising amount of colour and dynamism. It would be easy with this movement to fall into the trap of simply layering on more and more anguish, making for difficult listening, but she is too subtle and intelligent a player to allow that to happen. Helmchen’s playing in the melancholy second movement Andante is similarly sensitive, beautifully supporting Hecker’s rendering of the melody which Nicolas Derny’s helpful booklet notes perceptively describes as ‘somewhere between a siciliana and a Kaddish’. The Klezmer influence comes to the fore in the finale, which in this performance has a welcome angularity and snap as well as lyricism.

Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello in C Major is another work written for Rostropovich. It’s a composition striking for its simplicity but Hecker and Helmchen show in their performance what a profound charge the music carries. Hecker’s playing of the opening melody in the lower registers of her instrument is deeply expressive and I really admired the way that the conversation that follows with Helmchen grows organically from that slightly mystical start and is characterised by spontaneity as well as passion. The scherzo which follows has a dance like spring to it, and a delightful lightness of touch, a nod by the players to this accomplished composer of ballet scores. The folk infused finale has an almost ecstatic feel by the end in this intoxicating reading.

It’s a nice touch after the Prokofiev to go to the Rachmaninov G Minor Sonata, the most well-known of the pieces on the album to end the recital. This is famously one of Rachmaninov’s  pieces that represented a triumphant return to composition after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony in 1897. The piece is infused with the sonorities and sensibilities of the Russian Orthodox Church and Hecker and Helmchen bring these out superbly in this performance. The opening slow introduction with its plaintive two note cello theme is redolent here of the hush in a great church before the service begins and as the Allegro moderato progresses the players render the return of that motif with a sense of progression and development, spiritual as well as musical. Hecker’s playing in the second movement scherzo and trio is tremendous, very lyrical, dramatic where needed, always beautifully sonorous. She carries this over to the rapturous Andante where Helmchen is also sublime in his touch and sensitivity. I’m sure I could smell the incense at times. And it’s a while since I have heard such an utterly joyful finale. The playing also has a touch of nobility about it, which feels completely appropriate.

This is a memorable album from two fine and highly experienced musicians. If I had a slight quibble I wanted a degree more spaciousness in the recorded sound, and just occasionally I thought Hecker’s cello sounded slightly recessed, so in some of the more climatic passages in the Shostakovich and Rachmaninov particularly, it was slightly difficult to hear the cello over the piano. I should stress this didn’t really affect my enjoyment of these performances significantly. Any lover of chamber music will get a lot out of this disc.

Dominic Hartley 

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Contents
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 (1934)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Cello Sonata No. 1 (1978)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Suite Italienne (1932/33)
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996)
Sonata for Cello & Piano No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63 (1959)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Cello Sonata in C major, Op. 119 (1949)
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 (1901)