Cello Concerto No. 2 (Shostakovich)

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The Cello Concerto No. 2, Opus 126, was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in the spring of 1966 in the Crimea. Like the first concerto, it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere in Moscow under Yevgeny Svetlanov on 25 September 1966 at the composer's 60th birthday concert. Sometimes the concerto is listed as being in the key of G, but the score gives no such indication.

Along with the Eleventh String Quartet, the Preface to the Complete Works, and the Seven Romances on Texts by Alexander Blok, the Second Cello Concerto signaled the beginning of Shostakovich's late period style.

Like the Fourth Symphony and Ninth String Quartet before it and the Fifteenth Symphony after it, the Second Cello Concerto gave Shostakovich some problems in the compositional stages. The opening Largo, for example, was originally conceived to be the start of a new symphony. Shostakovich later abandoned this idea, however, and reworked this movement into its present form. The finale also gave the composer considerable trouble. He confessed to Mstislav Rostropovich, the concerto's dedicatee, that he had a finale completely written out but decided to scrap that version and supplant it with the one we know today because he felt that his original finale was weak. Shostakovich also allowed Rostropovich to make a few changes to the concerto's cadenzas.

The concerto lasts around 35 minutes and has three movements:

1. Largo
2. Allegretto
3. Allegretto

The first movement begins in a dark and introspective mood, interrupted by the cadenza before the opening theme returns. The second movement is based on a theme from an Odessa street song, Bubliki, kupitye, bubliki (Buy My Bread Rolls). The finale begins with French horn fanfares, then moves through lyric, march and dance sections.

[edit] Recordings

Recordings of this work include the following:

• Mstislav Rostropovich/Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra/David Oistrakh (12-Nov-1967) (Yedang Classics)
• Mstislav Rostropovich/USSR Symphony Orchestra/Evgeny Svetlanov (EMI Classics)
• Mstislav Rostropovich/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis (BBC Legends)
• Mstislav Rostropovich/Boston Symphony Orchestra/Seiji Ozawa (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Heinrich Schiff/Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Maxim Shostakovich (Philips)
• Mischa Maisky/London Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Maria Kliegel/Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit (Naxos Records)
• Truls Mørk/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Mariss Jansons (Virgin Classics)
• Natalia Gutman/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov (RCA/BMG) ([1])

v • d • e Concertos by Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 · Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102 Violin Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77 (revised as Op. 99) · Violin Concerto No. 2 in C sharp minor, Op. 129 Cello Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 107 · Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126 List of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich