Francesco and Daniel Muller-Schott release a collection of cello sonatas including pieces by Britten, Porkofiev and Shostakovich. The new album offers three works that sum up several chapters of 20th c. Soviet history that go far beyond just the music. Sergei Prokofiev displays a masterful serenity in his songlike Sonata in C, op. 119, composed in 1949. It makes evident his adjustment to the cultural politics of the Soviet Union to which this world-famous composer had returned. Dmitri Shostakovichs Sonata in d minor, op. 40 is no less marked by the communist regime. The piece was on the program of a concert tour given by the composer and his cello partner Viktor Kubatsky in 1936 when Shostakovich was put on the Stalinist index of undesirables. Finally, Benjamin Brittens Sonata in C, op. 65 marked the beginning of a productive, creative friendship with Rostropovich that was established, despite the Cold War, in Aldeburgh in 1961, where it was debuted by the composer and Rostropovich.
You can pre order the cd here.
