NI 6117 Robin Ireland viola • Tim Horton piano www.robinireland.co.uk Prokofiev Producer: Jeremy Hayes • Sound Engineer: Peter Newble Recorded in July 2009 at Potton Hall, Suffolk Six pieces from Cover image: John Brokenshire • www.johnbrokenshire.co.uk ‘Romeo and Juliet’ P 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited © 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited www.wyastone.co.uk Shostakovich Preludes Viola Sonata

Robin Ireland viola Tim Horton piano 8 Prokofiev the twenties. Astonishingly, he chose to return In 2005, Robin was commissioned by the University Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Six Pieces from Romeo and Juliet to Soviet Russia in 1932, at a time of appalling of Sheffield to write a string quartet for its centenary Contemporary Music Group. celebrations. This work, played by the Lindsays, Transcribed by V. Borisovsky for viola and piano developments politically and socially, and composed In 2005 Tim was chosen as the scholar of the Klavier Romeo and Juliet during an apparently idyllic summer features on a CD alongside Pairings (his three This CD of Russian music brings together Prokofiev’s Festival Ruhr at the recommendation of Alfred holiday there with his family, oblivious to the events duos, for viola and cello, two violas, and violin and extraordinary musical depiction of young romantic Brendel. surrounding him and the dangers of his move. viola) available on the Meridian label. In the same love with Shostakovich’s deeply touching musical Equally surprising is that this man, widely regarded year, he received funding from the Arts Council Chamber music is central to Tim’s interests. He farewell, written during his final illness. The character as a dry, intellectual and egocentric aesthete, should to collaborate with the poet Elizabeth Barrett and has been the pianist with Ensemble 360 since its of the viola provides a compelling voice for both. be the composer to embody in such inspired and composed fifteen tone poems for solo viola which formation in 2005. This Ensemble is based at the Who would have thought that Prokofiev’s huge passionate music the spirit of Shakespeare’s star- interleave with poems from her collection The Bat Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and consists of a string orchestral score could find such convincing crossed young lovers. Detector (CD now available from Robin). quartet, a wind quintet, double bass and piano. As expression in a version for viola and piano? What well as performances throughout the UK including Robin plays on an Amati viola made in the early is lost in orchestral colour is gained through the a three year residency at the Wigmore Hall in personal voice and warmth that the viola brings to Shostakovich 1600s. He lives in South Yorkshire. Seven Preludes from Op. 34, London, the Ensemble has a strong commitment this much-beloved music. What is more, the piano to educational work with a particular view to writing is equally superb and must surely have been Transcribed for viola and piano by Borisovsky Tim Horton introducing classical music to as large an audience as Tim Horton was born in Brighton in 1974. At influenced by Prokofiev’s own version for solo Shostakovich composed the Op. 34 Preludes, possible. They have released three CDs of Mozart, the age of six he started taking piano lessons and piano, made in 1937. originally for piano, during 1932 and 1933, and Spohr and Beethoven. performed them himself widely that year during entered Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester The Suite is made up of music from the first act three years later. His teachers included Ryszard Tim has a duo partnership with cellist Adrian of the ballet, where we meet the young Juliet, the concert tours that he undertook , in part at least, for financial reasons. The title “Preludes” does Bakst, Heather Slade-Lipkin and Charles Hopkins. Brendel. They have given tours of Spain, Germany, Montague and Capulet youths, encounter the In 1995 Tim graduated from Trinity College, Italy and the UK and yearly performances at the young lovers in the Balcony scene, and the prancing little to prepare one for the enchanting nature of these pieces, which are miniature masterpieces Cambridge. Plush Festival. He has also performed at the Mercutio. The latter provides a fine virtuosic Aldeburgh Festival with the Elias Quartet and at of character, worthy of Schumann, that master of In 1995 Tim was asked at short notice to opportunity for both viola and piano. Tragedy is not the Bath Festival. Tim has collaborated with many the genre. They take us on a rapid journey through replace Alfred Brendel in two performances of yet on the stage, although Mercutio’s music contains chamber musicians including Paul Lewis, Peter moments of tenderness, tragedy, satire, dance, Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with the City of moments of menace. Cropper, the Elias Quartet, the Vertavo Quartet, romance, and other less immediately definable Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Christian Poltera, Charles Owen and the members Prokofiev, for much of his life, escaped the moral experiences. The pieces are tonal, with not a few Rattle at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and the Royal of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio. He has a regular duo torment of Shostakovich as a composer under the references to other composers, including Mozart Festival Hall, London. He has since performed with partnership with violist Robin Ireland. Stalinist regime. He was a cosmopolitan character and Mahler. the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the who married a Spanish wife and lived in Paris during Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Trondheim 2 7 Vadim Borisovsky and subsequently became a founder member of The Preludes were transcribed for violin and piano superbly for the viola in his fifteen string quartets, Born in 1900 and died in 1972, was one of the great the Piano Quartet, Domus, which toured with its by a violinist, Dmitri Tzyganov, who showed them to but never having composed a piece for viola alone. figures in 20th century viola playing and teaching. His own portable concert hall (a geodesic dome) as Shostakovich. Shostakovich was delighted, and took Another great composer of the twentieth century, legacy includes 250 transcriptions for viola, some well as having great success in more conventional the trouble to make some small alterations to the Bartok, also wrote his final work for the viola. of them arguably the finest ever made. As early as venues. piano part. He apparently said that he thought the 1927, Hindemith, himself a famous violist, wrote In the spring of 1975, the violist Fyodor Druzhinin, Robin is well known as the violist of the Lindsay pieces sounded better in this version with violin and humourously: “ The world union of viola players! member of the Beethoven Quartet which String Quartet, with whom he played for twenty piano. One can well imagine that Borisovsky was Borisovsky is their chairman.” Borisovsky taught at premiered many of Shostakovich’s quartets, visited years. He now plays with the Primrose Piano thus encouraged to make his own transcription of the Moscow Conservatoire for half a century, and the composer in his home and played a number of Quartet and the Anton Stadler piano/clarinet/viola some of the pieces, for viola and piano, and with his among his hundreds of students was, for a short trio, and has a Duo with the pianist Tim Horton. usual sure touch he makes them sound as if they time, the young Yuri Bashmet. He was a founder As a soloist, he has broadcast on BBC Radio 3, must have been conceived for that combination. member in 1922 of the Beethoven Quartet, with performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the whom he gave the first performances of many of Liverpool Philharmonic and the London Mozart Dmitri Shostakovich Shostakovich’s string quartets. He retired from it in Players, and has in his repertoire all the major works 1964, handing over the viola chair to Druzhinin, for Viola Sonata Op. 147 (1975)

for viola. He specialises in recitals of unaccompanied © Boosey&Hawkes/Arenapal whom Shostakovich wrote the Viola Sonata. Shostakovich must have been aware that the Viola Bach, transcribed for viola from the violin and cello Sonata would be his final work. What kind of a Shostakovich wrote of Borisovsky in 1969 : “Vadim works. His CD of Bach, which includes the Chaconne, summing up might it be, and why did he choose Vasilyevich favoured me with his friendship and kind is available on Quartz. His orchestral experience the viola? It is the string instrument beloved of and attitude to my music and to me for a long time. includes working as guest principal viola with the played by a surprisingly large number of composers, It has always been a great joy for me to associate City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish yet rarely composed for by them. It is the often with him as a musician of a tremendous talent and Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic hidden voice in the texture of string ensembles. As great skill and also a person of a big heart and great Orchestra and Opera North. a solo instrument, it remains a rarity, despite the culture and erudition. If asked exactly what attracts advocacy of great players such as Tertis, Primrose, me most in Borisovsky’s personality I would answer: Robin is Senior Viola Tutor at the Birmingham Borisovsky and Yuri Bashmet. Something in the everything.” Conservatoire and also teaches at the University of Sheffield, at Cambridge, and on courses run by nature of the sound of the viola seems to make Robin Ireland ESTA, Pro Corda and Cadenza. He tutors viola it less suited to being outgoing and showy, but extremely suited to the expression of introverted, Robin Ireland was a student at Cambridge workshops and directs a string chamber orchestra. personal feelings and thoughts. Perhaps this is University and at the Eastman School of Music, He is a keen student of the Alexander Technique explanation enough for why Shostakovich was Rochester, New York. He had a short spell as and of Chi Kung, both of which influence his drawn to it at the end of his life, having written leader of the Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra teaching. 6 3 works for viola to him. Shostakovich also discussed shook so that he could barely write), the sonata, vary widely, with enormously different approaches aimlessly; it is one of several instances in the work aspects of viola technique with him, asking advice started on June 25th, was completed on August 6th. to tempo and mood, from extremely slow and where all energy fades away. Strummed pizzicato on what was possible, such as the fast parallel Shostakovich died three days later. On October reflective to rather lively and flowing. Shostakovich chords in the viola announce a sombre middle fourths in the second movement of the sonata. 1st, Druzhinin, to whom the sonata was dedicated, might have approved. He took little notice of his section which seems to touch into the world He described to him his intentions for the piece: gave the first performance. Some months later, the own metronome marks when performing his own of Russian Orthodox music, with a deep-voiced the first movement was to be a short story, the great Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh listened to music, and seems to have given his seal of approval chant in the piano. Shostakovich was a confirmed second a scherzo and the finale an adagio in a private performance of the sonata in a house in to the varying approaches to his music of very atheist, so this reference to a rather stern religious memory of Beethoven. Despite his physical frailty Prussia Cove in Cornwall. He is reported to have different performers and ensembles. music in the context of the irreverent music of the (Druzhinin describes how Shostakovich’s hand sat in silence for a long while at the end, and then surrounding scherzo is quite fascinating, especially at The first movement opens with the plucked open said, “ That is a work you should not play too often”. a time when he was preparing for death. strings of the viola. This provides the first of many Probably he felt that a work of such personal and resonances with works from other composers, in this intimate content could not be entered into with The very inconclusive end to the second movement case the Violin Concerto of Alban Berg, dedicated total involvement on a repeated basis, and perhaps is followed by the first of three soliloquies for the “to the memory of an angel”. The subtly evolving that is as true for the listener as for the players. It viola alone in the final movement. A profound first section of the movement ends ominously, and is particularly true of the last movement, in which summing up of an extraordinary life, this movement a stormy passage breaks out, with Shostakovich’s Shostakovich quotes the famous “funeral march” contains passages of great tenderness, of mystery, characteristic mix of angry energy and a certain dotted-rhythm motif from Beethoven’s Moonlight of nobility, of questioning and resignation, of musical quality of the grim struggle of mundane Soviet daily Sonata. gestures recollected from the past. The movement’s life. Curiously this is presented in the form of a kind climax, after the third and most powerful of the The first movement, despite its casual allegiance of waltz. It eventually wears itself out, and dissolves soliloquies, brings back the deep intoning bass to sonata form, conveys the sense of a stream of into a disembodied and mysterious recapitulation. sonorities in the piano, reiterating the cadence consciousness, in which certain moods, states of Gradually, the “mundane” music returns, building figure which returns again and again during the mind and musical recollections ebb and flow and, to a climax from which the viola emerges alone, movement as a symbol of completion or ending. through a kind of emotional logic, lead either speaking first with an impassioned voice, and then Shostakovich was accustomed to use his music to gradually or abruptly into something new. The entering into a fragmented soliloquy, from which say what could not be spoken out loud, and his true writing, especially for piano, is very spare. The the movement plays itself out. meaning is often deliberately concealed. How we presence of a lonely personal voice constantly interpret the C major ending, with distant trumpet The second movement is an ironic scherzo, highly returns, and there is also a musical voice, generally calls heralding a new life, must remain a matter of rhythmical and energetic, and with some moments in the piano, that echoes the function of the classical personal intuition. of sleazy night-club music worthy of Kurt Weil. Greek chorus, giving a commentary on the events The first scherzo section lapses into a passage like and feelings in the drama. Perhaps not surprisingly, a musical no-mans-land, where the notes circle viola players’ interpretations of this movement 4 5 Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953) Six Pieces from the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1935) Transcribed by V. Borisovsky for viola and piano 1. Introduction 2’ 38” 2. The street awakens 1’ 32” 3. The young Juliet 3’ 19” 4. Dance of the knights 5’ 53” 5. Balcony scene 6’ 23” Sho s takovich: Prelude s , V iola Sonata Prokofiev: Six p iece s from ‘ R omeo and Juliet’ 6. Mercutio 2’ 29” Robin Ireland viola Sho s takovich: Prelude s , V iola Sonata Prokofiev: Six p iece s from ‘ R omeo and Juliet’ Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975) Seven Preludes from Op.34 (1933) Tim Horton piano Transcribed by V. Borisovsky for viola and piano 7. No. 10 Un peu triste 1’38” www.robinireland.co.uk 8. No. 14 Marche funebre 2’22” 9. No. 15 Une valse vite 1’01” www.wyastone.co.uk 10. No. 16 Une marche militaire 1’23” 11. No. 17 Melodie amoureuse 1’56” 12. No. 18 Une danse ironique 1’01” 13. No. 24 Finale 1’25” Dmitry Shostakovich: Sonata for viola and piano, Op.147 (1975) Producer: Jeremy Hayes 14. I Moderato 9’18” Sound Engineer: Peter Newble 15. II Allegretto 7’36” Recorded in July 2009 at Potton Hall, Suffolk 16. III Adagio 14’42” Cover image: John Brokenshire Total playing time 65’30” www.johnbrokenshire.co.uk

NI 6117 Made in the UK by Wyastone Estate Limited NI 6117 Produced under an exclusive license from Robin Ireland P 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited © 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited www.wyastone.co.uk