Shostakovich / Schnittke: Cello Sonatas / Stravinsky: Suite Italienne

Featuring

Roland Pöntinen
Torleif Thedéen
Igor Stravinsky
Dmitri Shostakovich
Alfred Schnittke

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Compositional Technique

Schnittke's Cello Sonata, a prime example of his later style, combines elements of traditional and new music more peacefully, moving away from his earlier polystylistic period.

Historical Context

Shostakovich's opera "Lady Macbeth" was a great success at its 1934 premiere but was removed from Soviet stages overnight in 1936 after Stalin saw it and disapproved, marking the first serious attack on the composer.

Composer Biography

Igor Stravinsky's early success was tied to the Russian ballet in Paris, where impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned his scandalous ballets like "The Firebird" and "The Rite of Spring."

Composition History

Stravinsky's "Suite Italienne" for cello and piano, featured on this album, was arranged in 1932 in collaboration with the renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

Composition History

Dmitry Shostakovich began his Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40, in August 1934, composing the first movement in just two days amidst a personal quarrel with his wife.

Performer Biography

Cellist Torleif Thedéen, born in 1962, won the Hammer-Rostropovich prize, the Pablo Casals Competition, and the European Broadcasting Union's International Tribune for young interpreters in 1985.

Composer Biography

Alfred Schnittke, born two months after Shostakovich's Cello Sonata, paid homage to his famous countrymen with memorial pieces dedicated to Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev.