SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Claude Debussy: Cello Sonata in D minor (1915)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Sonata in D minor, op.40 (1936)
Dario Marianelli: Atonement: Suite (2007) (world première)
Bohuslav Martinu: Variations on a Theme of Rossini (1941)


Caroline Dale won the String Final of Young Musician of the Year when aged only 13. Within three years she had gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy, at 15 she made her London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and became the youngest ever recipient of the coveted Isserlis Scholarship, which led to lessons with the Pierre Fournier in Geneva and at the School of Fine Arts in Banff, Canada, with Janos Starker and Lynn Harrell. As well as playing in the Balanescu Quartet, and with her own band Ghostland, she has featured on the soundtracks of several films, most memorably Hilary and Jackie, the biography of Jacqueline du Pré. She is currently principal cello of the English Chamber Orchestra, and this recital was part of the ECO’s London concert season.

It was a bold move to start with the Debussy Sonata for this late work, by the musician français, is neither an easy play nor an easy listen, but Dale was in charge of things from the outset, launching herself into the opening phrase with gusto and leading us through the work with real style. In the elusive pizzicato scherzo one could hear guitars being played in some Spanish garden and the moto perpetuo finale was never allowed to get away from the players, as can so often happen. Despite this being a work of wartime, there are sufficient high jinks to offset the darker moments and the players brilliantly brought out the various moods and colours demanded by the composer.

Shostakovich’s Sonata, in the same key, is a different matter. Written at the time he fell fowl of Stalin, with his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, this is a simpler work, musically, but a nightmare for the performer. The first movement is a fairly straight forward piece of work, almost pastoral in feel, but ending with ominous drum taps from the piano. Serious stuff, to be sure, but never dark. The scherzo breaks the mood with a wild, heavy footed peasant dance, which is succeeded by a slow movement of enormous nobility and gravity. Here the cello sings a long, sad song, which builds to a glorious climax and Ms Dale paced it perfectly. The finale shows us the bluff side of Shostakovich’s humour, with a rondo theme of epic simplicity and episodes of frightening intensity. The insight the performers brought to Debussy were amply in evidence here as well.

The second half began with the world première of a new suite of music from the score for the film of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. In his note, the composer tells us that this suite “follows the narrative of the film, oscillating between the two poles of Briony’s machinations and the tender and passionate love story between Robbie and Cecilia.” There were two themes, sometimes played by the cello and at other times by the piano, and they were pretty undistinguished themes at that. The composer seemed unable, or unwilling, to do anything with his material and he was oblivious to the higher registers of the cello keeping everything fairly low down and ignoring the beautiful upper register which could, so effectively, have shown us the supposed passionate love story. This was a very earthy love story with no passion whatsoever and it was unquestionably dull stuff.

The paucity of invention in Marianelli’s score was shown up by Martinu’s vigorous and endlessly inventive Rossini Variations which followed it. Martinu achieves, in a mere ten minutes, a quite stunning exploration of the possibilities of the cello and what could be achieved, musically, with very little material – after all, what is a set of variations except an exploration of one single theme? Dale and Turner obviously enjoyed the challenges of this virtuosic score and threw off the difficulties with aplomb.

Bob Briggs


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