''There were no particularly happy moments in my life, no great joys—bitterness has coloured my life grey.'' Such are the sentiments which conclude the memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to Solomon Volkov in Testimony. The valedictory character of the Sonata for viola and piano, Op. 147, thus speaks powerfully of despairing resignation. Completed only days before the composer's death, on August 9th, 1975, the Sonata, like the other works on this CD, is deeply concerned with imminent, and inevitable leave-taking. Tabea Zimmermann and Hartmut Holl adopt a chillingly literal approach in the Sonata, and the final impression of dematerialized nihilism is enduring. This vein of passive objectivity, which allows the music to speak with such gravity, is evident right from the very opening of the work, where the inert plucked fifths of the viola put one in mind of the atmosphere experienced at the start of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Hartmut Holl's first piano entry heightens this latent torpidity and inertia, and how sinister is the glacial chill of the viola's sul ponticello tremolando a little farther on! Unlike Nobuko Imai and Roland Pontinen, on BIS, these players find no palliative or consolatory warmth in the music, whose spent, sinewless inscrutability is unadorned, yet truly heroic. The scornful tragi-comic mood of the Allegretto is presented with a hollow understatement, in which Tabea Zimmermann's scurrilous burlesquery is totally convincing.
Nobuko Imai's warmer view of the finale is preferable in some ways, as she finds a degree of repose at the conclusion of the work, in contrast to the exhausted restitution of C major attained by Zimmermann and Holl, who view this as the cheerless cessation of a lifetime's struggle. This, then, is a performance of lofty idealism, played with tremendous musical insight.
Britten's Lachrymae receives an equally fine account, which is compelling in its acutely reasoned delivery. So much of the work is hidden, and mysterious, as at the outset, where the music grows out of the viola's skeletal tremolando entry. It would be difficult to improve on this playing, for Zimmermann's assured technique allows each 'reflection' on Dowland's material to assume its own special character. Her range of tonal variation is impressive, with the viola sound a far cry from the nasal and convalescent utterances which have often prejudiced composers against the instrument.
The succinct Elegie by Stravinsky dates from 1944, and was the result of a commission in memory of the founder of the Pro Arte Quartet. With its strange polyphony, the work develops in a wholly unexpected way, having an expansive central fugue, surrounded by reflective outer sections. Zimmermann's sound-world is pensive, even plaintive at times, although the direction of the music is never in any doubt.
Zimmermann and Holl give convincing, and often deeply moving accounts of these significant modern additions to the viola repertory. Their playing excels, both in terms of its technical mastery and for its insights into certain aspects of human limitation and finality. Preferences may differ in the Shostakovich Sonata, but certainly the new version takes us on a harrowing musical journey, which touches upon issues common to us all.'