1. Dialogo. Allegro
2. Scherzo–pizzicato. Allegretto
3. Elegia. Lento
4. Marcia. Ernergico5. Moto perpetuo. Presto

Britten sat next to Shostakovich at a concert in the Royal Festival Hall on 21 September 1960 – the occasion of the first British performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, played by Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten was electrified by Rostropovich’s playing (Shostakovich later told Rostropovich that at the end of concert he was covered in bruises from being poked in the ribs by Britten: ‘As he liked so many things in the concerto, I am now suffering!’). Britten was delighted when Rostropovich asked him to write a piece for him. He planned the Sonata on a holiday in Greece and completed it in December 1960 and January 1961. Rostropovich and Britten gave the first performance on 7 July 1961 at the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh. In his programme note for the premiere, Britten wrote short descriptions of each movement. The first is ‘a discussion of a tiny motive of a rising or falling second. The motive is lengthened to make a lyrical second subject which rises and falls from a pizzicato harmonic.’ The demanding pizzicato second movement is ‘almost guitar-like in its elaborate right-hand technique’ while the third is ‘a long tune … developed by means of double, triple and quadruple stopping, to a big climax, and sinks away to a soft conclusion.’ The short march has the cello playing ‘a rumbustious bass to the jerky tune on the piano’, which returns after the central section ‘very softly, with the bass (now in the treble) in harmonics. The closing moto perpetuo includes an allusion to the D-S-C-H theme that Shostakovich used extensively in the Cello Concerto No. 1 – something Britten does not mention in his note, which describes the treatment of the dance-like theme as ‘now grumbling, now carefree’.

Nigel Simeone (C)