1986 LP text:
Each artist expresses themselves in recordings in their own way. One may choose the most vibrant and impressive pieces from the repertoire, another aims to capture something new and unheard, while a third resembles a researcher, deeply delving into the work of a single composer, style, or genre. In any case, however, a recording becomes a kind of self-portrait, demonstrating how the musician perceives their own creativity — its direction and character.
When speaking about Daniil Shafran, one consistent condition stands out: the artist entrusts recording only to what has become the culmination of an entire period of performance activity, what has been crystallized to the maximum, devoid of any randomness. This does not imply an "absolute" interpretation established once and for all on a record: Shafran's creative manner is alien to inertia, stasis, or unequivocalness; he is in constant, active search, movement, and improvement. At the same time, perhaps it is in recordings that all the artist's creative intentions are ideally captured and revealed, with the self-reflection and inner richness of interpretation manifesting with maximum strength.
Daniil Shafran is a striking example of a romantic musician. This is not just a role or a specific repertoire inclination of the artist, but his creative stance, his attitude towards art in general. Shafran's concerts and recordings immerse us in a world of special spiritual concentration and self-dedication, in a realm where the movements of the human soul and musical expressiveness are inseparably connected. Shafran's art is a high example of ethically tinged creativity, becoming essentially not just art, but a way of life, a method of perceiving the world — the harmony and disharmony of the forces reigning within it.
Music lovers are well acquainted with many of the artist's wonderful recordings. Among them are Bach's Six Suites, Beethoven's Five Sonatas, Shostakovich's Cello and Viola Sonatas, and Prokofiev's Sonata. But regardless of what Shafran plays, we always sense in his interpretation the unique traits that define the romantic image of the musician. These are, first and foremost, vivid individuality, originality, and unconventional expression, as well as a characteristically generalized approach to the performed music, where individual details are colored by the performer's vision of the whole.
Of course, Shafran is most fully and interestingly revealed in the music of romantic composers. The cellist has released a number of records with recordings of romantic cello literature — a kind of "anthology" that includes Brahms' two sonatas, Schubert's Sonata, Schumann's "Fantasy Pieces," and Chopin's "Brilliant Polonaise."
Chopin's Cello Sonata (Op. 65, 1846) is one of the composer's few ensemble works and the largest of his three pieces related to the cello. The first, "Introduction and Polonaise Brillante" for cello and piano, was written by the young Chopin for the amateur cellist Prince Radziwill, at whose estate he stayed in the autumn of 1829. The other two — the Sonata and the Grand Duo Concertant on themes from Meyerbeer's opera "Robert the Devil" — were created in collaboration with the famous French cellist and Chopin's friend Auguste Franchomme. The four movements of the Sonata, composed in the last years of the composer's life, are sketches of various states, sometimes serenely lyrical, sometimes tinged with hopeless tragedy. In Shafran's interpretation, the strong contrasting images of the music and its heightened emotionality are particularly clear.
Brahms' "Four Serious Songs" (Op. 121) are heard on the cello for the first time; the transcription was made by Shafran himself. "Four Serious Songs" is Brahms' last work, written in 1896 for bass and piano. The music unfolds slowly and restrainedly, but, as always with late Brahms, we feel a tremendous inner emotional tension.
Thus, two late works by Chopin and Brahms — perhaps the deepest pages of 19th-century music, the romantic era, colored by vivid personal revelations in all forms of art. Shafran's interpretation perfectly aligns with the spirit of these revelations; one could describe it in the words of the German Romantic poet Ludwig Uhland: "An immense poetic wealth is necessary to excel in the Romantic. The creative spirit must constantly evoke new and changing phenomena with a powerful magical wand. This does not mean, however, that it will be just a brightly colored firework display that blinds the eyes with intersecting lights. We do not want to see colorful soap bubbles of fantasy blown before us; in the game there must be meaning, in the image — divine life."
Alexander Ivashkin
