Shostakovich, Dzubay and Muczynski: Cello Sonatas
Carter Enyeart, cello; Adam Wodnicki, piano (Centaur)
Although Shostakovich gets top billing on the CD jacket, it is the first recordings of two modern American works, David Dzubay’s 1992 Sonata for Cello and Piano and Robert Muczynski’s Sonata of 1968, that recommend this disc to all who admire the cello.
Dzubay and cellist Carter Enyeart are faculty colleagues at the University of North Texas; the Sonata was written for and dedicated to Enyeart. It opens with an intensely mournful slow movement followed by a fast movement that is propelled by motor rhythms and, at one point, a bebop-style pizzicato ground bass. Beautifully conceived for the instruments, the music bears a distinctive stamp and its ferocious bravura demands are fully met by cellist and pianist.
With its fleeting echoes of Bartok and Shostakovich, and its sturdy neoclassical structure, the Cello Sonata by Chicago-born composer Muczynski exploits the moody lyricism that comes so naturally to the cello. It makes for 27 minutes of compelling listening.
Competition is, of course, much keener with recordings of the Shostakovich Sonata. Unequalled is a newly reissued studio version by Mstislav Rostropovich and the late Sviatoslav Richter included in EMI’s essential 13-CD anthology, “Rostropovich: The Russian Years.” But Enyeart and Adam Wodnicki offer a strong alternative reading. The sound balance sometimes favors the piano at the cello’s expense but is otherwise fine. One of the year’s best contemporary chamber music albums.
