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Russian music is a great musical treasure trove, with many recordings and works that are not well known and buried many excellent Russian players. Our focus today is on the Russian cello master Shafraun.
For Russian record companies, the "melody" under the Russian Ministry of Culture basically covered all the recordings of the former Soviet Union, so that later the major Western record companies wanted to import Russian music recordings and could only buy from this company. 33 rpm of vinyl and 78 revs of old records peaked in 1973, with nearly 200 million copies sold a year and nearly a million tapes sold that year. "Melody" is indispensable to the popularization of classical music, and most Russian classical music works such as Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" are also the first traditional pieces to enter the western record. Of course, the young people of the former Soviet Union also learned about Western music, and it also began with bands such as the Western Beatles introduced by "Melody".
Since the 1970s and 1980s, Melody has been working with Western record labels, resulting in the emergence of Melody/Angel in the U.S. market, and Melody/HMV is emi's exclusive label name. In 1989, the world's major labels began to frequently establish cooperative relations with "melody" companies, for a time many labels, Logos flocked to, so the vinyl burners began to have a headache, remember that once The "Nutcracker" directed by Roger Stevinsky actually appeared on the label of Columbia Company in the United States, no one could explain the relationship clearly, it was really incomprehensible, until 1994 BMG signed the exclusive distribution right, this phenomenon was terminated.
In the 1920s, due to the influence of changes in the world pattern, musicians in the former Soviet Union have been shrouded under the cold Iron Curtain, and it is remembered that Aujstrahe was "sent abroad" to spend a short time alone with many Western musicians in the gap between the transit in Helsinki, Finland. Later, the Russian cellist Rostropovich, the pianist Licht, and Shafran, who won the first place in the Budapest University Music Competition with Lao Luo, were used as the business cards of the former Soviet government, and the situation was changed.
In the eyes of vinyl burners, Shafraun is a god-like existence, and his "Bach A cappella suite" is a hit on major auction websites. I was also curious to find a copy of the East German version compared with the original Soviet version. When I heard it, I was amazed. Each bow is clean and neat, vigorous and powerful, with clear segmentation, and there is a feeling of a chef cooking a small fresh. So I consulted some foreign websites and stumbled upon a secret affair between him and Rostropovich.
According to Savran's stepdaughter, although Safran would send birthday messages on time in Rostropovich's later years, she never received a response. As a representative and benchmark of the Russian cello, the reason for this situation is unknown. Even after Shafraun's death, Roche still did not say a word. Shafram's daughter will also complain that the Russian music scene treats Rostropovich and Shafram's attitudes very differently. It is said that the two had already met as early as 1949 when they won the budapest youth and university music competition, and in the same year, the two were equally divided in the international professional cello competition in Ganusvigan in Prague. It is reasonable to say that it is quite possible to feel sorry for each other, but this is not the case, of course, the two people have different backgrounds, Rocchaine is from the Class, from the Moscow Conservatory, and Shafraun is a talented teenager from Leningrad, at the age of 14, he won the all-Soviet cello competition, and thus won a famous 1730 Amatti piano that accompanied him for life, and came to Moscow at the age of 20 and became the principal of the symphony orchestra. At that time, Luo was just a third-class student at the Moscow Conservatory. Most people speculate whether it is a question of both shengyu and he shengliang.
Listen carefully to the version of Bach's "Bach Cello A cappella suite" several times, and you are incomparable, and the old Roy and Chafrann's Bach are not on the same level at all. In 1960, Lao Luo played the full set of "Bach Cello A cappella suite" at the Prague Spring, leaving recordings of the second, fifth and sixth suites in the early years, and recording the complete sets twenty years later, but this can not be compared with Shafran.
Of course, this is my personal opinion. Because of his close proximity to Shostakovich, He was given many opportunities and became the first player of the Shaw Cello Concerto, performing in Europe. Shaffrand developed spontaneously and toured Europe, playing haydn and Bocherini's cello concertos in a distinct style, cheerful and bright, and the burners had the opportunity to find this recording. I have on hand a version that was introduced in japan later, which was very clean and inexpensive, and was one of the best records in the price. In fact, Shafran's recordings at Melody are really not to be missed.
In fact, a closer look at Shafraun's background is not difficult to find that his talent is also inherited, his father is the principal cellist of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, and his mother is a pianist. His father was his first cello teacher, and he bought him his first cello at the age of eight and a half, but his father was very strict, and in the early days Shafraun naturally suffered a lot of hardships to practice, but he was bitter, and at the age of 10 he enrolled in the Leningrad Conservatory of Music and completed his first performance; at the age of 11, he began to play Tchaikovsky's Rocovsky Variations with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra; at the age of 14 he won the gold medal in the All-Soviet Violin and Cello Competition, and he also got an Amaty. The sound of this piano is really unusual, there is a record recommended to everyone, the track of this record reflects the mellow sound of this piano. The title of the repertoire may surprise you, and in 1975, just a few weeks before Shostakovich's return, he wrote a sonata for viola and piano. Originally written for Fyodor Druzhinin, the violin principal of the Beethoven Quartet, he later premiered it in October of the same year. The piece is typical of Shostakovich's style, and attentive listeners will find certain passages particularly similar to Shostakovich's Quartet No. 14. It is said that Shafraun deliberately consulted Shostakovich and adapted the work, making it a sonata for cello and piano. After its first release by Melody in 1975, other cellists recorded the work.
In addition to Shostakovich's cello sonatas, Brahms's cello sonatas have long been known to the world, and I have collected many versions, fouriers, Trier, Taidou Casals, etc. On one trip to Osaka, I received several of Savfran's records, the most proud of which was this Brahms Cello Sonata and the Dvořák Cello Concerto introduced below.
Get the brahms record, urgently put on the turntable, the tone is elegant, gorgeous, Bramstre has some musical emotions filled with it. I also found a small movement, which is probably a trick of the musician (I am not a professional musician, Banmen got an axe), and it feels that he likes to use the tip of the bow to pull the strings when he plays, and the bow hair seems to be very loosely adjusted, so that the sound of pulling out is too shocking, desolate and poignant. The two sonatas written by Brahms are more than twenty years apart and have completely different styles. The first sonata, which he also composed for solo instruments and pianos, was composed in 1862 in E minor with a distinctly lyrical and deeply pessimistic focus. The second work, written in F major in 1886, is clearly written by an old and skilled composer, full of momentum and enthusiasm. Looking back at Shafraun's interpretation, his emotions are fully filled with emotion, which is also different from the style of other performers.
Dvořák's Cello Concerto I have collected more than 40 versions, so I often compare which one is more original and which one is more representative of the style of playing. Music originally gives everyone a different feeling, and it is not certain which point will move you in an instant and make you cry. Shafram's version of Dvořák crushed the defenseless me in an instant, leaving me in tears. This is something I didn't expect. Listening to Dupre's version would also be moved, but not so heartbreaking. Dvořák's innate melody was sung and shouted by Shafraun's cello, rushing out of the clouds. There is a video of the Dvořák Cello Concerto by Shafraun and Giulini on the Youku network, and everyone has time to watch, peek at the whole leopard, and see this great poet.
The Shafraun phenomenon is a very unique and irreproducible miracle. At that time, the generation was taught that in addition to music, life should be constantly striving, moving towards the highest goal, and even wearing a very formal tuxedo for rehearsals, I think this is worth learning. At that time, children with extraordinary artistic talents who were an important part of a powerful propaganda weapon were intensively trained to stand up "when the motherland needed it most", and there were genius children's classes like the violinist Kegang, and later the teenager Kissing was one of the "secret weapons". Schaaffron studied with Schtrimer at the age of 8, and two years later he entered the Leningrad Conservatory as one of the ten selectors, where he studied under Schreich. This outstanding teacher had a decisive influence on his artistic career. He was charismatic and very open-minded, well versed in literature, art and law, and educated his students in all directions, but never forced them to do everything, but truly and truly taught according to their aptitudes. But fate for the cello poet, these are destined to be nothing more than a personal experience of the musical world, without funding, he has no opportunity to do a large-scale tour, and the media has turned a blind eye to him. In 1993, during his farewell concert, there was no media propaganda, and the final result was that the concert hall of the Moscow Conservatory was only 50% full. It is said that after Shafraun's death, the most frequent phone calls received by the family were not condolences but to inquire whether his Amadeus was for sale, which showed that the world was cold.
An excerpt from Hi-Fi Magazine, Issue 2, 2017
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