Respire #6 – Brahms, Shostakovich

„Frei aber einsam” – „free but lonely” was the personal motto of József Joachim, the greatest violin virtuoso of the 19th century, when he was surprised with a multi-author sonata with the title F-A-E. by three friends of his: Albert Dietrich, Robert Schumann and the twenty-year old Johannes Brahms, who would not reveal which movement had been written by whom. Joachim had no difficulty solving the riddle, however. Brahms’s scherzo movement – now performed Antal Zalai – carries all of its composer’s stylistic features. While the scherzo is one of the earliest surviving Brahms compositions, Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata is the very last piece of the Soviet composer’s oeuvre. The three-movement work, performed by the highly competent Maxim Rysanov – Zoltán Fejérvári duet, is a genuine epitome encapsulating the singular fusion of beauty and bitterness, Shostakovich’s unique hallmark. The closing C-major chord is just as ambiguous as everything else in his music: either it stands for the possibility that happiness can be reached in this world after all, or the opposite: that happiness is possible only in the afterlife.