Dmitri Shostakovich Sonata for Cello and Piano op 40,D minor I-Allegro ma non troppo
The Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40, was one of Dmitri Shostakovich's early works, composed in 1934. Dmitri Shostakovichwas barely 28 then. Yet Yet it can hardly hardly be called an early early piece, since since the Russian composer completed his brilliant First Symphony as a 19-yearold, and one of his most significant masterpieces, the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District – District – at at the tender age of 26. 26 . It was also a period of emotional turmoil in his life, as he had fallen in love with a young student at a Leningrad festival featuring his Lady Macbeth. Their affair resulted in a brief divorce from his wife Nina, and it was in August, during their period of separation, that he wrote the cello sonata, completing it within a few weeks and giving its premiere in Moscow on 25 December with his close friend, the cellist Viktor Kubatsky, who was also the piece's dedicatee.
I-Allegro ma non troppo
The sonatina form first movement contrasts a broad first theme in cello, accompanied by flowing piano arpeggios, developed by the piano
towards an intense climax.
As tension abates, a ray of light appears with the tender second theme, with unusual tonal shifts, announced by the piano and imitated by the cello. In the development a spiky rhythmic motif penetrates through the flowing textures of the first theme, but soon the gentler second theme reappears.
There might be a connection between this movement of the Cello Sonata and the years 1934-37. It was a period of dynamic change and of a quest for a new language in the composer’s oeuvre. The date of his Sonata in D minor (1934) coincides with the premiere of the above-mentioned opera; its naturalism and radicalism caused some of Shostakovich’s greatest problems with Soviet authorities. Which takes us to an unusual pianissimo "recapitulation" section where all moves in slow motion, with staccato chords in the piano and sustained notes in the cello. This short and agitated bass motif in the piano, appearing towards the end of the exposition and dramatising the later course of the work,can be associated with a door knock . The door knock of the authorities coming after him. Because it was such a tensioned period for Shostakivoch,his separation from his soon-to-be his wife again,Nina,and the political situation under st Stalin’s dictatorship,we can feel in the 1 movement the slightly chaotic atmosphere. Ending-with the door knock…
