Germany Shostakovich Festival Leipzig [8]: Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider (violin), Daniil Trifonov (piano). Gewandhaus Hall, Leipzig. 18.5.2025. (GT)
Shostakovich – Sonata for Piano, Op.12; Sonata for Piano in B minor, Op.61; Unfinished Sonata for Violin and Piano; Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op.134
This was a concert of two distinct halves, in both a musical and performance sense, and led to my only disappointment in this survey of Shostakovich’s music in Leipzig. There was a sharp contrast between the First Piano Sonata from the beginning of his career – and the Second Piano Sonata – in quite diverse styles, and ultimately, the final work in the programme was one of Shostakovich’s most deeply pessimistic works. The contrasting styles revealed the astonishing transformation in the psychological portrait of the composer throughout his career.
The opening of the Piano Sonata of 1926 was extraordinary, in the spectacularly brutal chords exhibited by Daniil Trifonov with explosive notes flying from the keyboard. The influence of constructivism became palpable with the exciting, harsh rhythms and rapidly changing ideas that seemed to herald a new form of music. There are six movements in its twelve minutes length, and there are three sections, fast-slow-fast, with quick tempo changes throughout. His teacher Leonid Nikolayev called it ‘a sonata for metronome accompanied by the piano.’ The temperament is akin to the early piano works of Prokofiev or Alexander Mosolov, embracing harsh dissonance, and in the central section, switching to influences from Scriabin, embracing late romanticism in a reflective passage before swiftly transforming into a wild chase to the finish. This was like a demonstration piece exhibiting brilliant technical skill, and in which Trifonov proved a brilliant protagonist.
The wartime Piano Sonata is quite different in the combination of late romanticism and modernism crafted with melodic beauty and colour. Composed in 1943, the piece was under the shadow of his two war symphonies, yet at this time Shostakovich was writing romances to texts by Raleigh, Burns and Shakespeare, and later songs by British and American poets. He had also started and given up composing a comic opera based on Gogol’s The Gambler. The opening movement (Allegretto) is dominated by the unyielding suggestion of Bach’s ‘Inventions’, which leads to a citation from his own First Symphony, followed by a march-like theme and a fortissimo climax before the second movement (Largo) which contains a desperately sad waltz-like subject perhaps hinting at the desolation of the war period. The final movement (Moderato-Allegretto con moto-Adagio-Moderato) opens with a series of variations and alludes to his piano teacher, Nikolayev, who passed away during the war. Uniquely, the monogram DSCH appears, and finally, the last seventh variation reprises the opening idea dedicated to Bach. Shostakovich regarded the Second Sonata as his finest piano work, yet he never played it in public. Trifonov played the dynamically exciting Scherzo No.1 as an encore in response to the overwhelming applause.
The Unfinished Violin Sonata dates from the last year of the war and comprises only a first movement with two contrasting themes and an exposition in 225 bars and then discarded. It was a fascinating glimpse into the composer’s thoughts at the time, yet without the individualism so typical of Shostakovich.
The performance of the Second Violin Sonata did not reach the degree of brilliant musicality as in the first section; Trifonov was magnificent at the keyboard, but the violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider’s tone was often insecure. The opening movement (Andante) presented an invocation of Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata in ghostly whispers on the violin and tolling bells on the piano, creating the impression of ‘wind passing through a graveyard’. As if suggesting the composer’s presence, there appeared the motif DSCH shared between the two instruments. The second idea is a grotesquely quirky march that took us to the section in which Szeps-Znaider unveiled a sul ponticello and pizzicato to a muted passage as the music drifts away into the distance in a chilly idiom.
The second movement (Allegretto) is a wild demonic scherzo that leads to a forceful increase of tension which creates a terrifyingly relentless sequence of desperate emotions and fears. The shrieks from the violin – as if evoking a despairing dance – now both instruments were as if percussion instruments in a ferociously frantic culmination. The third movement (Largo) is a passacaglia; there emerged a series of variations opened by Szeps-Znaider with a pizzicato passage and slowly unwinding variations as if bearing a coded message within each variation. These haunting moments led to the reprise from the first movement of ringing bells on the keyboard of Trifonov, and this intensely multifaceted work closed with a chilling theme of terrible desperation mixed with resignation. The intense performance by the two musicians brought the audience to their feet in gratitude for this spell-binding performance.
Gregor Tassie
Featured Image: Violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider and pianist Daniil Trifonov © George Stefanou