Prokofiev - Sinfonia Concertante; Tchaikovsky - Rococo Variations; Andante Cantabile

Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)

Sinfonia Concertante 

Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)

Variations on a Rococo Theme; Andante Cantabile

Lorin Maazel 

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 

Yo-Yo Ma (Cello)

One of the great, neglected compositions for cello and orchestra (it was composed for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich), Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto deserves a much wider audience. The work's length and technical difficulty have, until recently, prevented it from receiving much attention in concert, though it has been recorded several times. Ma's performance is exceptionally fine--listening to the security with which he attacks the stratospheric closing bars is an especially exciting experience--and the coupling of Prokofiev with two of Tchaikovsky's cello-centered works is both apt and refreshing. This disc is one of Ma's very best. 

David Hurwitz

_________________________

Playing this a couple of days after the death of the great American conductor Lorin Maazel, it pleased me to think of the Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile (an arrangement of the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 1) as an elegy for Maazel. Ma plays it beautifully, and the excellent recording (1991 digital) does justice to Maazel's accompaniment too. Also very fine is the account of the Rococo Variations. The combination of elegance and romantic warmth is very winning, and Maazel does a great job not only with the delicacy of the accompaniment but with the transitions between the variations that make us us hear them as progressively developing and not as chopped up or sectionalized. It's the judgment of tempo that does the job.

What to make of the big Prokofiev piece -- it's 40 minutes or so long, with the second movement making up almost half of that? It's not the most memorable piece, but it's very alive in the moment, and so one never feels the ear tire with sameness. The first movement strikes me as a march, though not a brutally motoric one, and it has a good deal of both thematic and textural variety without loss of its forward-moving pulse. It's pleasing rather than profound -- true of the work as a whole, I would say -- and the mood gets lighter, if anything, as the piece goes on. The second movement seems to wrap a scherzo round a more tender lyrical section and thus perhaps combine two movements in one here. Rostropovich, the dedicatee, worked with Prokofiev during composition, and there are all sorts of bells and whistles for the soloist. The most striking to me were the passages in the highest register of the cello, and no praise is too high for Ma's playing. He can bring restraint and elegance (which I think of as Ma's default mode), but also humor and energy when called for, and in the taxing high passages, as well as in the cadenza in the middle of the second movement, he doesn't make an ugly sound. The first chair players in the orchestra get their chances to shine, and they second Ma admirably. The balance is first rate, and Maazel keeps things moving without sacrifice of the playfulness in the last two movements. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable disc.