The Cello Concerto No. 2,

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126, was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in the spring of 1966 in the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

. Like the first concerto, it was written for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

under

Yevgeny Svetlanov Yevgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov (russian: Евгéний Фёдорович Светлáнов; 6 September 1928 – 3 May 2002) was a Russian conductor, composer and a pianist. Life and work Svetlanov was born in Moscow and studied conducting ...

on 25 September 1966 at the composer's 60th birthday concert. Sometimes the concerto is listed as being in the key of G, but the score gives no such indication. Along with the Eleventh String Quartet, the ''Preface to the Complete Works'', and the ''Seven Romances on Texts by Alexander Blok'', the Second Cello Concerto signaled the beginning of Shostakovich's late style.

Composition

Like the Fourth Symphony and Ninth String Quartet before it and the Fifteenth Symphony after it, the Second Cello Concerto gave Shostakovich some problems in the compositional stages. The opening Largo, for example, was originally conceived to be the start of a new symphony. Shostakovich later abandoned this idea, however, and reworked this movement into its present form. The finale also gave the composer considerable trouble. He confessed to Rostropovich that he had a finale completely written out but decided it was weak, scrapped it, and replaced it with the one we know today. Shostakovich also allowed Rostropovich to make a few changes to the concerto's cadenzas.

Scoring

The concerto is scored for solo

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

, one piccolo, one flute, two

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. ...

s, two clarinets (each doubling B and A), two bassoons, contrabassoon (doubling 3rd bassoon), two

horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

, slapstick, wood block,

tom-tom A tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language. It was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between in diameter, though floor toms can go as l ...

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

, snare drum, bass drum,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

, two harps (always in unison as indicated on the score), and

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

. The concerto lasts around 35 minutes and has three

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

Structure

First movement

The first movement begins with solo cello, later joined by cellos and basses in octaves, interrupted by the cadenza before the opening theme returns. It then builds up with a series of interjections by the xylophone. The exchanges continue until the cello leads the orchestra into a climax, which gives way to a cadenza restating the opening material, punctuated by bass drum thumps. The movement ends softly.

Second movement

The second movement is based on a theme from an Odessa street song, ''Bubliki, kupitye, bubliki (Buy My Bread Rolls)''.

Third movement

The finale begins with French horn fanfares, followed by a cello cadenza accompanied only by tambourine. The Allegretto then moves through lyric, march, and dance sections. It builds in intensity, rising with an exchange of cello bursts countered by the snare drum, eventually developing into a climax; first restating the fanfare theme, then reverting to a grotesque variation of the Odessa theme. The whip is cracked twice during the climax, then ending the tutti. The cello then revisits the dancelike statement from earlier in the movement. In the coda the cello sustains a D over a percussion motif, concluding with a solo ''sforzando''. Although the piece has a rather irregular structure, the themes are evenly distributed and played in equal measure. This relative equality of mention is drastically different from the aggressive repetition of the

DSCH motif DSCH is a musical motif used by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes ''D, E-flat, C, B natural'', or in German musical notation ''D, Es, C, H' ...

in the First Cello Concerto, and this characteristic proves to be an important aspect of Shostakovich's later period.

Recordings

Recordings of this work include the following: * Mstislav Rostropovich/

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(12-Nov-1967) (Yedang Classics) * Mstislav Rostropovich/ USSR Symphony Orchestra/

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(

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) * Mstislav Rostropovich/

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/ Colin Davis (BBC Legends; monophonic aircheck of the first Western performance) * Mstislav Rostropovich/ Boston Symphony Orchestra/ Seiji Ozawa (

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( Naxos Records) *

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/Moscow State Philharmony/

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(Talent) *

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/ Vladimir Valek (Le Chant du Monde) *

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(Phoenix Edition) *

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References

{{Authority control Concertos by Dmitri Shostakovich Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 1966 compositions Compositions in G major