Schnittke: Complete Works for Cello and Piano
The combination of cello and piano has been key to Schnittke's blossoming reputation, especially given the frequency with which the Cello Sonata No. 1 gets performed. Here Irina Schnittke, the composer's widow (he died in the summer of 1998), plays with bruising key pressure, tremendous sustain, and limpid grace, from the classical tinges of the first section to the slammed clusters of the second section to the fade of the third. Schnittke had Mstislav Rostropovich in mind for Cello Sonata No. 2, with its long, slowly wavering lines and mid-to-low register range. Irina Schnittke matches Alexander Ivashkin's dense cello reflections with chromatic bursts and falling trails of off-center notes. The shortMusica Nostalgica, recorded here for the first time, was dedicated to Rostropovich and is a short, bittersweet miniature. Closing the CD is the 26-minuteEpilogue from the ballet Peer Gynt, which Schnittke brilliantly scored for a taped chorus, cello, and foreshadow-rich piano. Again displaying the composer's imagination to be filled with points of crashing impact, the piece operates on the hinge of elaborately built, somber power and emotive blocks of energy that throw Ivashkin's soaring cello against disembodied choral floats.--Andrew Bartlett