“I feel like I’m giving away a spoiler!” reveals Steven Isserlis conspiratorially. “It’s got this amazing moment at the beginning of the second movement where the alto saxophone has this a huge solo. I always ask the saxophonist to stand up for it. It really hits the audience between the eyes!” We’re talking about Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Second Cello Concerto, which Isserlis is playing with Mario Venzago and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in December and it’s clear he’s a fan.
“It’s very exciting to play, so original. Of course it’s hard, but it’s not ridiculously hard because it’s so idiomatically written for the cello. Audiences enjoy it, orchestras enjoy it, conductors enjoy it and I enjoy it… so I don’t know why it’s not played more often!”
Apart from the occasional Galop from The Comedians or the overture to Colas Breugnon, there’s not a lot of Kabalevsky programmed in concert halls today. A pupil of Nikolai Myaskovsky, Kabalevsky was a contemporary of Shostakovich, but rather in his shadow… and rather more adroit at keeping his nose clean. He initially appeared on the 1948 Zhdanov Decree, which denounced composers including Shostakovich and Prokofiev as formalists, but he managed to have his name removed pretty swiftly.
“Some Russians won’t hear his name spoken!” says Isserlis. “People who knew him say he was complicated, and many Russians travelling abroad wouldn’t programme his music. I first got to know this concerto because it was written for one of my cello heroes, Daniil Shafran. I first heard it on record when I was a teenager and completely fell in love with it. But much later I came to the sonata that was written for Mstislav Rostropovich – that’s comparatively recent in my repertoire, about six or seven years ago – and it’s an equally wonderful piece. I recorded it with Olli Mustonen, who also loves it.
“I do think Kabalevsky is unfairly neglected. Both these pieces – the sonata and the second concerto – have soft endings, which might not help their chances of being programmed. I played the concerto quite recently in London with the Philharmonia and Jakub Hrůša. I’ve also played it this year in the US and Spain, so occasionally I can persuade people to take it on, so I’m pleased to be able to play it in Singapore.”
The concerto is in C minor, in three movements, and has an unusual slow-fast-slow structure – “a bit like Shostakovich 2” – linked by cadenzas so that it plays without a break (attacca). It opens with a mysterious pizzicato melody – “shocking, isn’t it?” – and at the centre of the first movement is a sudden eruption from the cello before a melancholy theme and a long cadenza. The Presto marcato second movement is aggressively announced by the saxophone, whose theme is taken up by the cello in a busy perpetuum mobile, stopped in its tracks by forceful brass. Another cadenza leads to a lyrical Andante con molto, “a beautiful melody,” says Isserlis, “where Kabalevsky said he wanted people to think of something very good”. Kabalevsky quickens the pace and references material from the earlier movements before ending the concerto quietly.
Was Kabelevsky writing for Shafran’s sound? “Yes, because he had recorded the First Cello Concerto, which he made sound like a masterpiece when it actually is not! It’s a good piece but it’s nothing like as good as the Second. And I think that Kabalevsky was so impressed that he must have had Shafran’s sound in his mind as he composed.” Isserlis points me towards a video of the concerto’s 1965 world premiere, where Daniil Shafran joined the Leningrad Philharmonic, with the composer himself conducting.
“Among cellists these days, Shafran’s reputation has risen and risen,” says Isserlis. “When they were both alive, Rostropovich was hugely famous while Shafran was stuck out in the suburbs of Moscow. I went to his apartment once, a big unfriendly looking building which was a huge contrast with Rostropovich’s houses all over the world.
“I was first introduced to Shafran on LP by my teacher, Jane Cowan, when I was about 12. I immediately fell in love with his playing. I was always in love with his playing. It’s not just the sound – although his sound was amazing – it was the sheer honesty, the sheer sincerity of his playing and the elegance, the warmth and the passion, rubatos and yes, the amazing sound. He was like a Russian folk singer who happened to play the cello.”