Prokofiev's Cello Sonata

Synopsis

Composer Serge Prokofiev and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich first met in 1947 when Prokofiev was 56 and already ailing, and Rostropovich, a fresh, skinny 20-year-old, was just at the start of his career. Rostropovich had played Prokofiev's long-neglected First Cello Concerto and, after the performance, the grateful composer said he would write something new for the talented young cellist.

Prokofiev completed a Cello Sonata, and in the summer of 1949 invited Rostropovich to his country dacha to play through the new piece. When Rostropovich arrived, he found Prokofiev dressed in a bathrobe with a towel on his head like a turban, surrounded by chickens and roosters. "Forgive my rustic appearance," said Prokofiev to the obviously embarrassed young cellist, and they promptly set to work.

The first public performance of the new Sonata took place on today's date in 1950, at the Moscow Conservatory, with Rostropovich joined by pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Ill health prevented Prokofiev from attending—but, fortunately, we can listen in via a recording that was made at that very performance.

Prokofiev rarely added epigraphs to his scores, but at the top of the score for his Cello Sonata he added some words of Maxim Gorky, "Man — that has a proud sound." Commentators have suggested the broad, sweeping warmth of Prokofiev's Sonata expresses a similar sentiment. In any case, the new work was an instant hit and rapidly became a staple in the cello repertory.

Music Played in Today's Program

Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953) Cello Sonata in C, Op. 119 Mstislav Rostropovich, vcl; Sviatoslav Richter, p (r. March 1, 1950) EMI Classics 72016

On This Day

Births

• 1810 - Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin, in Zelazowa Wola (This is the date Chopin and his friends observed, although the composer's baptismal certificate says he was born on February 22);

• 1896 - Greek conductor and composer Dimitri Mitropoulos, in Athens;

Deaths

• 1643 - Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi, age 59, in Rome;

• 1777 - Austrian composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil, age 62, in Vienna;

• 1976 - French conductor and composer Jean Martinon, age 66, in Paris;

• 1980 - American folksinger and folksong collector John Jacob Niles, age 88, near Lexington, Ky.;

Premieres

• 1736 - Handel: cantata "Alexander's Feast," Concerto grosso in C (HWV. 318), Harp Concerto, Op. 4, no. 6, and Organ Concerto, Op. 4, no. 1, in London (Julian date: Feb. 19);

• 1743 - Handel: oratorio "Samson" and possibly the Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 2, in London (Julian date: Feb. 18);

• 1950 - Menotti: opera "The Consul," in Philadelphia at the Shubert Theatre; The opera opened in New York City on March 15, 1950, and won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Music;

• 1950 - Prokofiev: Cello Sonata, Op. 119 (first public performance), at the Moscow Conservatory, by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter; The same artists had given a private performance of the work in Moscow, at the House of the Union of Composers on December 6, 1949;

• 1958 - Pizzetti: opera "Assassinio della cattedrale" (based on T.S. Eliot's play "Murder in the Cathedral"), at the Teatro della Scala in Milan;

• 1968 - Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (first version) at Colet Court Prep School in London;

• 1979 - Broadway premiere of Sondheim: musical "Sweeny Todd";

• 2003 - Beethoven: "Largo" movement from a lost Oboe Concerto written in 1792, reconstructed by Dutch musicologists Jos van der Zanden and Cees Nieuwenhuizen, by the Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra conducted by Conrad van Alphen, with Alexei Ogrintchouk the oboe soloist;

Others

• 1907 - American premiere of Debussy: "La Mer," by the Boston Symphony, Karl Muck conducting;

• 1916 - U.S. premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting.