Daniil Shafran · Concert Tours in Germany 1957-1973 ∙ 2CD

May 2021 ∙ British Gramophone ∙ Rob Cowan ∙ Daniil Shafran · Concert Tours in Germany 1957-1973
Shafran at his best: Soviet Russia’s two greatest cellists were Mstislav Rostropovich and Daniil Shafran. Meloclassic’s excellent booklet note for Shafran’s ‘Concert Tours in Germany 1957-1973’ quotes the cellist as saying: ‘I respect him [Rostropovich] as one of the outstanding musicians of our time, but we are not friends.’ When I interviewed Rostropovich in the 1990s my merely mentioning Shafran was met with a blank look at best. Chalk and cheese, I’d say, Shafran the suave introvert, Rostropovich the big-hearted extrovert. Shafran learnt the art of rigorous practising from his cellist father; he was a perfectionist and spent endless hours working on his tone (including countless varieties of vibrato), his phrasing, his amazing technique and his overall view of a piece. This particular programme includes a taut, lyrical and assured account of the Dvorák Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Carl von Garaguly, a Hungarian violinist and conductor who spent much of his working life in Scandinavia. He certainly cues a strongly projected account of Dvorák’s orchestral score and viewed as a whole, the performance is supremely successful. After Dvorák comes Kabalevsky, his appealing First Concerto conducted by the composer, who had also led Shafran’s equally fine Melodiya recording of the work (available on Omega Classics). As to works with piano (Anton Ginsburg) Britten’s Sonata is dazzling – in the closing Moto perpetuo, for example, bow and strings enter into bouncy banter – while Franck’s Sonata, transcribed from its violin original, is charged with feeling, and Prokofiev’s Sonata witnesses, at the start of its finale, a veritable flood of glorious tone. So does the Serenata from Stravinsky’s Suite italienne, another wonderful performance. All the duo sonatas are offered in stereo. Fabulous!
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