TAMESTIT / MAISKY / QUATUOR ÉBÈNE / ARGERICH / KISSIN

The spring-like, gently lyrical mood that opens the Sonata for Cello and Piano is still a good omen: the work dates from 1934, before the composer’s disgrace with the Soviet regime. The Quintet for Piano and Strings is in a completely different mood: written shortly before the USSR entered the war, the playful atmosphere of its Finale and the lyricism of some of its pages enabled the composer to win the Stalin Prize, certifying his rehabilitation as an official composer of the regime. Nevertheless, Shostakovich now had to play a complex game, aware that he was composing under surveillance. The extremely rare Concertino for Two Pianos is a perfect example of the composer’s talent for creating extremely complex forms in a simple, pleasant guise. One example is the superb melody that runs through the work, all joint movements and reminiscent of a popular song. To close this tribute, we could present no other work than Shostakovich’s final score: the Sonata for Viola and Piano. Reversing the formal balance of the classical sonata, two slow movements frame a fast one. Opening with pizzicato cries of pain, superimposed monologues, it then plunges us back into the USSR of 1941, the time of the Piano Quintet, when Shostakovich took up sketches from one of his unfinished operas, in a style close to Prokofiev. The Adagio, which closes Shostakovich’s entire oeuvre, is a final ironic and sad look at his own life, a collection of quotations from his own works and their main influences, before plunging into the abyss of silence.