San Francisco Classical Voice

SYMPHONY REVIEW

Powerful Artists in Tandem

February 13, 2003

Steven Isserlis

By John Lutterman

Thursday night's performance of the San Francisco Symphony offered a rare opportunity to hear two of the most talented cellists of the past half-century, Mstislav Rostropovich and Steven Isserlis, in collaboration. Rostropovich has figured as a giant on the world stage since he was first allowed to tour outside the Soviet Union in the early sixties. His debut in New York was an astonishing accomplishment— he performed 31 concertos in just two weeks. He has probably done more than any other cellist to define the "modern" style of cello playing, popularizing the use of high-tension steel strings. But his larger-than-life reputation extends far beyond his career as a cellist. He is an accomplished pianist and studied composition with Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both of whom composed concertos and sonatas for him. Indeed, a huge portion of the most popular twentieth-century repertoire was written for Rostropovich, including two of the works in last week's program.

In 1970, fed up with the oppression that Soviet artists were subject to, Rostropovich published an open letter of protest in Pravda — a courageous move that brought his career in the USSR to a standstill. He left in 1974 and was officially declared a "non-person." His conducting career, which had begun in 1960, received international attention when he was appointed music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in 1977, a post he held for seventeen years. The first work on Thursday's program, Leonard Bernstein's Slava, a Political Overture, was written for Rostropovich's inaugural concert with the NSO. This is a dense little fanfare, a boisterous program opener, based on themes from Bernstein's Broadway musical 1600, but these are combined in an ironic, almost Ivesian juxtaposition of styles and overlaid with a tape of demagogic Presidential speeches. Slava is a lively program opener, and showed the SFO at its best, but its effect was bit chilling, given the current spate of presidential demagoguery.

The heart of the evening's program was Benjamin Britten's Cello Symphony of 1963, another of the major cello works written for Rostropovich. Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is programmed often enough, but he has never been properly recognized for his instrumental music, and it was only several decades after his death that his orchestral music began to receive serious attention. Not as immediately accessible as the Prokofiev and Shostakovich concertos, the Cello Symphony is a magnificent epic of a work and deserves to be programmed more often. While not obviously virtuosic, it provides formidable technical challenges, including trills of artificial harmonics. As the title suggests, this is not truly a concerto, and while there is often a sense of struggle in the dialog between cello and orchestra, and the soloist is often given opportunity to eloquently express his own perspective, the orchestra remains hegemonic. This scenario, and the predominantly dark and moody character of the work, seem to mirror Rostropovich's complex relation with his native country.

The definitive grasp

Steven Isserlis was among the first of the younger generation to program and record the Cello Symphony. Although several major cellists have since taken up the work, his 1988 CD is really the only one in a league with Rostropovich's own early recording, an extraordinary performance with Britten conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. Other cellists have approached the Cello Symphony in a manner superficially more similar to Rostropovich, but none have really made it their own, surely the goal of any convincing performance. In fact, it would be hard to imagine a cellist whose approach is more different than Rostropovich's, and this is one of the things that made Thursday's performance so interesting.

Isserlis has had a career quite unlike any of his contemporaries. Like Rostropovich, he was born into a musical family, in fact one of his grandfathers was a renowned Russian pianist. But his only important teacher was Jane Cowan, an extraordinarily bright and talented Scotswoman who had somewhat eccentric ideas about cello pedagogy, including a firm belief in the inherent superiority of gut strings. This had nothing to do with ideas of authenticity, however, and although Isserlis has always performed on gut strings, and has on occasion worked with period instrument groups, his major stylistic model has been another Russian cellist, Rostropovich's rival, Daniel Shafran. Shafran rarely toured outside the USSR, and is little known in the US, but has long had something of a cult following among connoisseurs in Europe, especially other cellists.

Hearing Rostropovich conduct this work with another cellist would have been interesting under any circumstances, but considering their differences, the collaboration with Isserlis was simply fascinating. There was a curious reversal in this performance. We ordinarily think of "period instrument" string players using gut strings, which were the norm when the music they perform was written. But by this argument, an "authentic" performance of Britten would entail using a cello set up with steel strings, since Britten composed the work for Rostropovich, who although he had grown up playing on gut, had long since switched to steel. I don't know what kind of strings Isserlis used last week, but from the warmth and variety of sound he produced, I suspect he decided to stay with his guts.

No dueling celli

In any case, this was a spellbinding performance, and if there were differences of opinion between the soloist and conductor, it was not apparent to the audience. It was wonderful to hear and see these two working together so creatively. Rostropovich was supportive and impassioned in his exhortations to the orchestra. The orchestration of this work is brilliant, and the winds of the SFO were really outstanding. The contrabassoon and lower brass were especially fine. The vigor with which Isserlis attacked the exclamations of the opening movement was a bit surprising — Rostropovich takes a more stately approach; but this was an eloquent, insightful performance with many moments of stunning beauty. Isserlis has an extremely refined sense of intonation, and an incredible ear, musical intelligence and imagination. The only real disappointment was in the orchestral string playing, which was accurate but somewhat sluggish and mechanical.

Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, which brought the concert to a close, was another opportunity for the talented SFO wind soloists to shine: the horn, clarinet and oboe solos deserve special mention. Rostropovich chose some unusual tempos, mostly on the slow side, and the performance sometimes lacked a sense of direction, but this was mainly due to the lackluster string playing. As a conductor, Rostropovich is sometimes faulted for his rather vague stick technique, but few would take issue with his command of a score or his passionate commitment as a performer.

His conducting was energetic, and his sense of purpose seemed quite clear, but while the winds responded with enthusiasm, the strings seemed curiously uninvolved. As in the Britten, their playing was well in tune, and ensemble was quite good, but there was little beyond the most rudimentary shaping, coloring or inflecting of phrases. Perhaps they have simply made too many traversals of this war-horse, but they owe their public a more committed performance. Fortunately their public responded to the considerable strengths of the program rather than its weaknesses, and a heartfelt standing ovation offered Rostropovich ample opportunity to warmly acknowledge the performance of his soloists.