Exotic rhythms, exuberant and unmistakably Georgian folk melodies,
woodwind solos filled with longing, passionate writing for the
primary soloist, and an immediately appealing orchestral palette
– lovers of Khachaturian’s classic Violin Concerto will
recognize in his Cello Concerto all the elements that make
this composer a 20th century favorite.
The
work for cello and orchestra is not as well-known as its counterpart,
but that is an injustice which this new recording attempts
to counteract. Dmitry Yablonsky is the excellent soloist,
and his account makes it clear that a potential audience favorite
has been withheld from the standard repertoire for too long.
Khachaturian
no longer needs introduction to Western audiences. He is known
from his ballets Gayaneh and Spartacus, and
from his Violin Concerto, as a composer who pleases
both the crowds and the critics. The Violin Concerto
was premiered by legendary violinist David Oistrakh, and has
been a staple of concert programs and new CDs ever since.
It has been recorded by the likes of Leonid Kogan, Itzhak
Perlman, Henryk Szeryng, Ruggiero Ricci and, more recently,
Julia Fischer. The Cello Concerto has not received
anything like that level of advocacy. By my count, this is
just the seventh major recording of the stereo era. The work’s
relative obscurity may have something to do with its gloomier
overall atmosphere, its more troubled emotional state, and,
worst of all, the harsh denunciations leveled at it by Soviet
authorities after its premiere in 1946. Let us hope that this
fantastic recording will inspire its return to the mainstream.
The
Cello Concerto opens with an orchestral introduction of only
about a minute’s duration. It is heavy with foreboding and
tapers off into one of the many moody, mysterious clarinet
solos which punctuate the first movement. Then the cello enters
and announces the memorable first theme. After that the movement
is off to the races: brilliant color, skilful thematic development,
and high drama mix in the same folksy idiom which characterizes
so much of this composer’s music. A delicious clarinet solo
prepares the way for the second subject, and there is a sudden
reminiscence of the Dies irae theme by the orchestra
as the cellist enters, but the Catholic hymn is warded off
before it can really settle in. The development reaches its
peak with a deliciously colorful dance in the seventh minute,
before the cellist’s cadenza skillfully combines the movement’s
dueling moods of exuberance and introspection.
The
second movement, beginning with an eerie flute solo, is a
dramatic, stern creation in which we see only glimmers of
the consoling ‘big tune’. One might compare it to a view of
a harsh landscape with a mere hint of lush green far in the
distance. The lyrical heart of this movement is evasive and
fleeting.
The
finale brings the expected fireworks, but it also presents
the main structural flaw: the energy level in the second half
of the finale consistently decreases until the lightning-fast
coda shocks the music out of its slumber. Perhaps this is
partially the responsibility of the performers, but I doubt
it. Dmitry Yablonsky’s cello playing is consistently riveting;
his regular work as a conductor on Naxos has concealed the
fact that he is a very fine cellist indeed. What’s more, the
Russian Philharmonia plays superbly throughout. The orchestra
itself is somewhat of an enigma — it was previously known
as the TV 6 Orchestra and does not appear to give public concerts
— but the level of the playing here is impressive. As mentioned,
the first-desk wind players are especially praiseworthy. And,
even when the final coda seems to come too soon, it is a mark
of Khachaturian’s skill that we are left hungering for more
rather than wishing there had been less.
Luckily
there is more. The Concerto-Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra
is a twenty-four minute work in a single movement. It makes
even greater demands on Yablonsky than the longer concerto.
Within a minute we are launched into an extremely long and
grueling solo cadenza, in which the cellist presents all the
themes we will soon be hearing amid much fiercely difficult
passage-work. The Concerto-Rhapsody is, perhaps, more
interesting on first listen, because its musical idiom is
largely more advanced and more forbidding than a typical Khachaturian
work. Oddly, on repeated hearings it is the simpler, more
tuneful concerto which is more rewarding. The Concerto-Rhapsody,
which occasionally quotes the Dies irae idea from the
earlier work, simply does not have enough thematic material
to justify its twenty-four minutes. There is a frankly dull
and repetitive stretch in the development passage, which is
a pity because the titanic cadenza had commanded our attention
so powerfully. Near the end Khachaturian pitches in a few
spectacular moments for the percussion and brass which recall
the peasant dances from Gayaneh, but this comes after
an awful lot of dithering over a very small number of interesting
musical ideas. By contrast, the Concerto is both a potential
crowd-pleaser and a satisfying, intelligent piece.
This
recording makes me wonder just why the Cello Concerto
isn’t a smash hit in concert halls across the world right
now. It’s instantly appealing, emotionally complex, fantastically
orchestrated, virtuosic, and filled with an abundance of good
tunes. At the very least, one would expect more recordings
to be available, but there is almost no major competition
for this Yablonsky performance. A Chandos disc featuring Raphael
Wallfisch puts the Concerto in a more elegiac light and features
very polished, expressive cello playing, though the acoustic
is not always flattering to the cello itself and the London
Philharmonic winds are not as characterful as their Russian
counterparts. Wallfisch has a definite edge on Yablonsky in
the expressive slow movement, but Yablonsky takes extra trouble
to make the repeated-note theme in the finale genuinely interesting
and varied, where Wallfisch simply runs the notes together.
The coupling on the Chandos disc is the Violin Concerto,
which most Khachaturian fans will likely already have.
I
have not heard the Regis recording with cellist Marina Tarasova,
but the disappointed reviews on this site by Michael Cookson
and Jonathan Woolf suggest that that performance, a full four
minutes slower than Yablonsky’s, is not a good advocate of
the piece. A Philips CD starring Christine Walevska and conductor
Eliahu Inbal is long out of print.
This
new recording featuring Dmitry Yablonsky is, then, the finest
available performance of the Khachaturian Cello Concerto,
and as such merits the strongest possible recommendation.
If the Concerto-Rhapsody does not always reach the
same level of inspiration, Yablonsky’s playing is still breathtaking.
These are recordings which any fan of Khachaturian would delight
to have, and which should commend a richly enjoyable but long-forgotten
concerto to a much wider audience. Rich, clear sound completes
the package.
As
a part of the Naxos Digital imprint, this album is currently
only available for download at the website Classicsonline,
where it sells for rather less than the price of a physical
compact disc. Naxos informs me that they plan a CD release
of these recordings for early 2010.
Brian Reinhart
[56:46] 
