Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra was dedicated to the outstanding Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. As the composer himself recalled: ‘When I accepted the commission, Slava said to me: “Don’t think about the cello. The cello is me. Write the music”.’ The work was composed in 1970 to a commission from the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. It was first performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall by the dedicatee himself, accompanied by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Edward Downes.

Lutosławski dissociated himself from numerous interpretations of the Concerto, including that of Andrzej Chłopecki, which suggested an extra-musical political message to the work: the clash between the individual (the cello) and the masses (the orchestra). The composer considered that the work had many meanings and could not be attributed to a specific moment in history. For this reason, it remains just as relevant today.

Mstislav Rostropovich’s virtuoso mastery also impressed Dmitri Shostakovich, who dedicated to him both of his cello concertos. Some observers may discern similarities between his Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat major and Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 – a work from 1953, composed shortly after the death of Joseph Stalin. Both compositions contain an allusion to Shostakovich’s characteristic musical cryptogram: DSCH. Solomon Volkov, a close friend of Shostakovich, published in his 1979 book Testimony. The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich the composer’s indication that the work was written as a recollection of the Stalinist era. For the most part, it evokes a dark aura, a gloomy time of totalitarianism, of which Shostakovich himself was a victim. Only the finale – the triumphant, victorious Allegro – suggests that even the darkness of Stalinism could not stop the rising sun of hope.
 

Jan Lech